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TEXT  FLY  WITHIN 
THE  BOOK  ONLY 


gOU  168168 


ro 


m 


=  OQ 


Gift  of 
YALE  UNIVERSITY 


With  the  aid  of  the 

ROCKEFELLER  FOUNDATION 

1949 


SELECTED   WRITINGS   OF 

Gertrude  Stein 


SELECTED    WRITINGS    OF 


Gertrude  Stein 


EDITED,  WITH  AN  INTRODUCTION  AND  NOTES 


by  Carl  Van  Vechten 


RANDOM    HOUSE    -    NEW    YORK 


FIRST   PRINTING 

Copyright,  1946,  by  Random  House,  Inc. 

Published  simultaneously  in  Canada  by 
Random  House  of  Canada  Limited 

The  editor  and  publishers  acknowledge  their 
indebtedness  to  the  Hogarth  Press  for  Composition 
as  Explanation  and  Preciosilla;  to  Vanity  Fair  for 
Have  They  Attached  Mary.  He  Giggled.  (A 
Political  Caricature] ;  To  The  Atlantic  Monthly  for 
The  Winner  Loses. 

Designer:  Ernst  Rcichl 


Manufactured  in  the  UnitcdStal 

by  the  Haddon  Craftsmen,  Inc.,  Scranton,  Pa. 


Contents 


A  Message  from  Gertrude  Stein  vii 

A  Stein  Song  by  Carl  Van  Vechten  ix 

The  Autobiography  of  Alice  B.  Toklas  3 

The  Gradual  Making  of  The  Making  of  Americans  211 

The  Making  of  Americans  (Selected  Passages)  229 
Three  Portraits  of  Painters: 

CEZANNE  289 

MATISSE  289 

PICASSO  293 

Melanctha:  EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  299 

Tender  Buttons  407 

Composition  as  Explanation  453 

Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge  at  the  Villa  Curonia  465 
Have  They  Attacked  Mary.  He  Giggled  (A  POLITICAL  CARICATURE)      471 

As  a  Wife  Has  a  Cow:  A  LOVE  STORY  481 
Two  Poems: 

SUSIE  ASADO  485 

PRECIOSILLA  486 
Two  Plays: 

LADIES'  VOICES  489 

WHAT  HAPPENED  491 

Miss  Furr  and  Miss  Skeene  497 


Contents 

A  Sweet  Tail  (Gypsies)  505 

Four  Saints  in  Three  Acts  511 

The  Winner  Loses:  A  PICTURE  OF  OCCUPIED  FRANCE  543 

The  Coming  of  the  Americans  (from  WARS  i  HAVE  SEEN)  567 


FRONTISPIECE:  Gertrude  Stein  and  Alice  B.  Toklas  in  the  garden 
of  their  villa  at  Bilignin,  1934.  Photograph  by  Carl  Van  Vechten. 


VI 


A  Message  from  Gertrude  Stein 


I  always  wanted  to  be  historical,  from  almost  a  baby  on,  I  felt  that  way 
about  it,  and  Carl  was  one  of  the  earliest  ones  that  made  me  be  certain 
that  I  was  going  to  be.  When  I  was  around  fourteen  I  used  to  love  to  say 
to  myself  those  awful  lines  of  George  Eliot,  May  I  be  one  of  those  im- 
mortal something  or  other,  I  havent  the  poem  here  and  although  I  knew 
then  how  it  went  I  do  not  now,  and  then  later  when  they  used  to  ask  me 
when  I  was  going  back  to  America,  not  until  I  am  a  lion,  I  said,  I  was  not 
completely  certain  that  I  was  going  to  be  but  now  here  I  am,  thank  you 
all.  How  terribly  exciting  each  one  of  these  were,  first  there  was  the  doing 
of  them,  the  intense  feeling  that  they  made  sense,  then  the  doubt  and  then 
each  time  over  again  the  intense  feeling  that  they  did  make  sense.  It  was 
Carl  who  arranged  for  the  printing  of  Tender  Buttons,  he  knew  and 
what  a  comfort  it  was  that  there  was  the  further  knowing  of  the  printed 
page,  so  naturally  it  was  he  that  would  choose  and  introduce  because  he 
was  the  first  that  made  the  first  solemn  contract  and  even  though  the 
editor  did  disappear,  it  was  not  before  the  edition  was  printed  and  dis- 
tributed, wonderful  days,  and  so  little  by  little  it  was  built  up  and  all  the 
time  Carl  wrote  to  me  and  I  wrote  to  him  and  he  always  knew,  and  it 
was  always  a  comfort  and  now  he  has  put  down  all  his  knowledge  of 
what  I  did  and  it  is  a  great  comfort.  Then  there  was  my  first  publisher 
who  was  commercial  but  who  said  he  would  print  and  he  would  publish 
even  if  he  did  not  understand  and  if  he  did  not  make  money,  it  sounds 
like  a  fairy  tale  but  it  is  true,  Bennett  said,  I  will  print  a  book  of  yours  a 
year  whatever  it  is  and  he  has,  and  often  I  have  worried  but  he  always 
said  there  was  nothing  to  worry  about  and  there  wasnt.  And  now  I  am 
pleased  here  are  the  selected  writings  and  naturally  I  wanted  more,  but 
I  do  and  can  say  that  all  that  are  here  are  those  that  I  wanted  the  most, 
thanks  and  thanks  again. 

„      .  GERTRUDE  STEIN 

Pans 

June  18, 1946 


VII 


A  Stein  Song 


Gertrude  Stein  rings  bells,  loves  baskets,  and  wears  handsome  waist- 
coats. She  has  a  tenderness  for  green  glass  and  buttons  have  a  tender- 
ness for  her.  In  the  matter  of  fans  you  can  only  compare  her  with  a 
motion-picture  star  in  Hollywood  and  three  generations  of  young 
writers  have  sat  at  her  feet.  She  has  influenced  without  coddling  them. 
In  her  own  time  she  is  a  legend  and  in  her  own  country  she  is  with 
honor.  Keys  to  sacred  doors  have  been  presented  to  her  and  she  under- 
stands how  to  open  them.  She  writes  books  for  children,  plays  for  actors, 
and  librettos  for  operas.  Each  one  of  them  is  one.  For  her  a  rose  is  a  rose 
and  how! 

I  composed  this  strictly  factual  account  of  Miss  Stein  and  her  activities 
for  a  catalogue  of  the  Gotham  Book  Mart  in  1940,  but  all  that  I  said 
then  seems  to  be  truer  than  ever  today.  Gertrude  Stein  currently  is  not 
merely  a  legend,  but  also  a  whole  folklore,  a  subject  for  an  epic  poem, 
and  the  young  GIs  who  crowded  into  her  Paris  apartment  on  the  rue 
Christine  during  and  after  the  Greater  War  have  augmented  the  num- 
ber of  her  fans  until  their  count  is  as  hard  to  reckon  as  that  of  the  grains 
of  sand  on  the  shore  by  the  sea.  During  the  war  I  frequently  received 
letters  from  soldiers  and  sailors  who,  with  only  two  days'  furlough  at 
their  disposal  and  a  long  way  to  travel,  sometimes  by  jeep,  spent  all  of 
their  free  hours  in  Paris  with  the  author  of  Tender  Buttons.  Other  GIs 
bore  her  away  on  a  flying  tour  of  Germany  and  still  others  carried  her 
by  automobile  to  Belgium  to  speak  to  their  cpmrades  there.  In  Paris  she 
gave  public  talks  to  groups  of  them  too  large  to  fit  into  her  apartment. 
Life  and  the  New  Yorf(  Times  Magazine  contracted  for  articles  from  her 
pen.  Her  play  of  existence  in  occupied  France,  Yes  Is  for  a  Very  Young 
Man,  was  presently  produced  at  the  Community  Playhouse  in  Pasadena, 
California.  Some  of  these  tributes,  naturally,  Were  due  to  her  personality 
and  charm,  but  most  of  them  stem  directly  from  the  library  shelves 
which  hold  her  collected  works.  Furthermore,  as  she  once  categorically 

ix 


x  A  STEIN  SONG 

informed  Alfred  Harcourt,  it  is  to  her  so-called  "difficult"  works  that 
she  owes  her  world-wide  celebrity. 

There  is  more  direct  testimony  regarding  her  experiences  with  the 
GIs  in  her  letters  to  me.  On  November  26, 1944,  after  the  coming  of  the 
Americans,  an  event  excitingly  described  in  this  Collection,  she  cabled 
me:  "Joyous  Days.  Endless  Love."  In  1945,  she  wrote,  "How  we  love  the 
American  army  we  never  do  stop  loving  the  American  army  one  single 
minute."  If  you  will  recall  Alexandre  Dumas's  motto,  J'aime  qui  m'aime, 
you  will  be  certain  they  loved  her  too.  Still  later  she  wrote  me:  "Enclosed 
is  a  description  of  a  talk  I  gave  them  which  did  excite  them,  they  walked 
me  home  fifty  strong  after  the  lecture  was  over  and  in  the  narrow 
streets  of  the  quarter  they  made  all  the  automobiles  take  side  streets,  the 
police  looked  and  followed  a  bit  but  gave  it  up."  Captain  Edmund 
Geisler,  her  escort  on  the  Belgian  excursion,  said  to  me,  "Wherever  she 
spoke  she  was  frank  and  even  belligerent.  She  made  the  GIs  awfully 
mad,  but  she  also  made  them  think  and  many  ended  in  agreement  with 
her." 

H 

In  Everybody's  Autobiography,  Gertrude  Stein  confesses :  "It  always  did 
bother  me  that  the  American  public  were  more  interested  in  me  than  in 
my  work."  Perhaps  this  statement  may  be  affirmed  justifiably  of  the 
anonymous  masses,  but  it  would  be  incorrect  to  apply  it  generally  to  the 
critics,  novelists,  and  reviewers  who  frequently  have  considered  her 
writing  worth  discussing  seriously.  It  has  occurred  to  me  that  a  brief 
summary  of  the  opinions  of  a  few  of  these  distinguished  gentlemen 
might  serve  to  reassure  the  reading  world  at  large  and  Miss  Stein  her- 
self on  this  controversial  point. 

Andre  Maurois,  for  example,  says  of  her :  "In  the  universal  confusion 
(the  war  years  and  after)  she  remains  intelligent;  she  has  kept  her  poetic 
sense  and  even  her  sense  of  humor."  Of  Wars  I  Have  Seen  he  writes : 
"The  originality  of  the  ideas,  the  deliberate  fantasy  of  the  comparisons, 
the  naivete  of  the  tone,  combined  with  the  profundity  of  the  thought, 
the  repetitions,  the  absence  of  punctuation,  all  that  first  irritates  the 
reader  finally  convinces  him  so  that  more  orthodox  styles  appear  insipid 
to  him.  Gertrude  Stein  is  believed  to  be  a  difficult  writer.  This  is  false. 


A  STEIN  SONG  xi 

There  is  not  a  single  phrase  in  this  book  that  cannot  be  comprehended 
by  a  schoolgirl  of  sixteen  years." 

Here  is  Ben  Ray  Redman's  testimony :  "Few  writers  have  ever  dared 
to  be,  or  have  ever  been  able  to  be,  as  simple  as  she,  as  simple  as  a  child, 
pointing  straight,  going  straight  to  the  heart  of  a  subject,  to  its  roots; 
pointing  straight,  when  and  where  adults  would  take  a  fancier  way  than 
pointing  because  they  have  learned  not  to  point.  ...  In  the  past,  per- 
haps wilfully,  she  has  often  failed  to  communicate,  and  it  was  either  her 
misfortune  or  her  fun,  depending  on  her  intention." 

Or  perhaps  you  would  prefer  Virgil  Thomson's  capsule  definition: 
"To  have  become  a  Founding  Father  of  her  century  is  her  own  reward 
for  having  long  ago,  and  completely,  dominated  her  language." 

An  earlier,  sympathetic,  and  highly  descriptive  view  is  that  of  Sher- 
wood Anderson:  "She  is  laying  word  against  word,  relating  sound  to 
sound,  feeling  for  the  taste,  the  smell,  the  rhythm  of  the  individual 
word.  She  is  attempting  to  do  something  for  the  writers  of  our  English 
speech  that  may  be  better  understood  after  a  time,  and  she  is  not  in  a 
hurry.  .  .  .  There  is  a  thing  one  might  call  'the  extension  of  the  prov- 
ince of  his  art'  one  wants  to  achieve.  One  works  with  words  and  one 
would  like  words  that  have  a  taste  on  the  lips,  that  have  a  perfume  to 
the  nostrils,  rattling  words  one  can  throw  into  a  box  and  shake,  making 
a  sharp  jingling  sound,  words  that,  when  seen  on  the  printed  page,  have 
a  distinct  arresting  effect  upon  the  eye,  words  that  when  they  jump  out 
from  under  the  pen  one  may  feel  with  the  fingers  as  one  might  caress 
the  cheeks  of  his  beloved.  And  what  I  think  is  that  these  books  of  Ger- 
trude Stein  do  in  a  very  real  sense  recreate  life  in  words." 

William  Carlos  Williams's  opinion  is  correlated  to  the  above:  "Hav- 
ing taken  the  words  to  her  choice,  to  emphasize  further  what  she  has  in 
mind  she  has  completely  unlinked  them  (in  her  most  recent  work: 
1930)  from  their  former  relationships  to  the  sentence.  This  was  abso- 
lutely essential  and  unescapable.  Each  under  the  new  arrangement  has 
a  quality  of  its  own,  but  not  conjoined  to  carry  the  burden  science, 
philosophy,  and  every  higgledy-piggledy  figment  of  law  and  order  have 
been  laying  upon  them  in  the  past.  They  are  like  a  crowd  at  Coney 
Island,  let  us  say,  seen  from  an  airplane.  .  .  .  She  has  placed  writing 
on  a  plane  where  it  may  deal  unhampered  with  its  own  affairs,  unbur- 
dened with  scientific  and  philosophic  lumber." 


xii  A  STEIN  SONG 

Edmund  Wilson  feels  compelled  to  admit:  "Whenever  we  pick  up 
her  writings,  however  unintelligible  we  may  find  them,  we  are  aware  of 
a  literary  personality  of  unmistakable  originality  and  distinction." 

Julian  Sawyer  contends:  "If  the  name  of  anything  or  everything  is 
dead,  as  Miss  Stein  has  always  rightly  contested,  the  only  thing  to  do 
to  keep  it  alive  is  to  rename  it.  And  that  is  what  Miss  Stein  did  and 
does." 

Pursuing  these  commentators,  I  fall  upon  Thornton  Wilder  who  as- 
serts: "There  have  been  too  many  books  that  attempted  to  flatter  or 
woo  or  persuade  or  coerce  the  reader.  Miss  Stein's  theory  of  the  audience 
insists  on  the  fact  that  the  richest  rewards  for  the  reader  have  come  from 
those  works  in  which  the  authors  admitted  no  consideration  of  an  audi- 
ence into  their  creating  mind." 

And  as  a  coda,  allow  me  to  permit  Joseph  Alsop,  Jr.,  to  speak :  "Miss 
Stein  is  no  out-pensioner  upon  Parnassus;  no  crank;  no  seeker  after 
personal  publicity;  no  fool.  She  is  a  remarkably  shrewd  woman,  with  an 
intelligence  both  sensitive  and  tough,  and  a  single  one  of  her  books, 
Three  Lives,  is  her  sufficient  ticket  of  admission  to  the  small  company 
of  authors  who  have  had  something  to  say  and  have  known  how  to 
say  it." 

HI 

If  Picasso  is  applauded  for  painting  pictures  which  do  not  represent  any- 
thing he  has  hitherto  seen,  if  Schoenberg  can  pen  a  score  that  sounds 
entirely  new  even  to  ears  accustomed  to  listen  to  modern  music,  why 
should  an  employer  of  English  words  be  required  to  form  sentences 
which  are  familiar  in  meaning,  shape,  and  sound  to  any  casual  reader  ? 
Miss  Stein  herself  implies  somewhere  that  where  there  is  communica- 
tion (or  identification)  there  can  be  no  question  of  creation.  This  is  solid 
ground,  walked  on  realistically,  as  anyone  who  has  been  exposed  to 
performances  of  music  by  Reger,  for  example,  can  readily  testify.  How- 
ever, it  must  be  borne  in  mind  that  composers  and  painters  are  not 
always  inspired  to  absolute  creation:  Schoenberg  wrote  music  for  Pel- 
leas  et  Melisande  and  the  tuneful  Vertyaerte  Nacht,  while  Picasso  had 
his  rose  and  blue  and  classic  periods  which  are  representational.  Like 
the  composer  and  painter  Miss  Stein  has  her  easier  moments  (The  Auto- 
biography of  Alice  B.  Tobias,  for  instance,  is  written  in  imitation  of 


A  STEIN  SONG  xiii 

Miss  Toklas's  own  manner)  and  even  in  her  more  "difficult"  pages 
there  are  variations,  some  of  which  are  in  the  nature  of  experiment. 
One  of  the  earliest  of  her  inventions  was  her  use  of  repetition  which 
she  describes  as  "insistence."  "Once  started  expressing  this  thing,  ex- 
pressing anything  there  can  be  no  repetition  because  the  essence  of  that 
expression  is  insistence,  and  if  you  insist  you  must  each  time  use  em- 
phasis and  if  you  use  emphasis  it  is  not  possible  while  anybody  is  alive 
that  they  should  use  exactly  the  same  emphasis.  ...  It  is  exactly  like 
a  frog  hopping  he  cannot  ever  hop  exactly  the  same  distance  or  the 
same  way  of  hopping  at  every  hop.  A  bird's  singing  is  perhaps  the 
nearest  thing  to  repetition  but  if  you  listen  they  too  vary  their  insistence." 
Then  she  began  to  find  new  names  for  things,  names  which  were  not 
nouns,  if  possible,  and,  renaming  things,  became  so  enchanted  some- 
times with  her  own  talent  and  the  music  of  the  words  as  they  dropped 
that  she  became  enamored  of  the  magic  of  the  mere  sounds,  but  quickly 
she  sensed  this  was  an  impasse  and  began  more  and  more  to  strive  to 
express  her  exact  meaning  with  pronouns,  conjunctions,  and  participial 
clauses.  After  a  while  she  came  back  to  nouns,  realizing  that  nouns, 
the  names  of  things,  make  poetry,  "When  I  said,  A  rose  is  a  rose  is  a  rose, 
and  then  later  made  that  into  a  ring,  I  made  poetry  and  what  did  I  do  I 
caressed  completely  caressed  and  addressed  a  noun."  She  had  another 
period  of  exciting  discovery  when  she  found  that  paragraphs  are  emo- 
tional and  sentences  are  not.  Finally,  it  came  to  her  that  she  could  con- 
dense and  concentrate  her  meaning  into  one  word  at  a  time,  "even  if 
there  were  always  one  after  the  other."  "I  found,"  she  has  told  us, 
"that  any  kind  of  book  if  you  read  with  glasses  and  somebody  is  cutting 
your  hair  and  so  you  cannot  keep  the  glasses  on  and  you  use  your 
glasses  as  a  magnifying  glass  and  so  read  word  by  word  reading  word 
by  word  makes  the  writing  that  is  not  anything  be  something.  ...  So 
that  shows  to  you  that  a  whole  thing  is  not  interesting  because  as  a 
whole  well  as  a  whole  there  has  to  be  remembering  and  forgetting,  but 
one  at  a  time,  oh  one  at  a  time  is  something  oh  yes  definitely  something." 
But  do  not  get  the  idea  that  her  essential  appeal  is  to  the  ear  or  the 
subconscious.  "It  is  her  eyes  and  mind  that  are  important  and  concerned 
in  choosing."  Perhaps  the  most  concrete  explanation  of  her  work  that 
she  has  ever  given  us  is  the  following  (from  The  Autobiography  of 
Alice  B.  Tobias) :  "Gertrude  Stein,  in  her  work,  has  always  been  pos- 
sessed by  the  intellectual  passion  for  exactitude  in  the  description  of 


xiv  A  STEIN  SONG 

inner  and  outer  reality.  She  has  produced  a  simplification  by  this  con- 
centration, and  as  a  result  the  destruction  of  associational  emotion  in 
poetry  and  prose.  She  knows  that  beauty,  music,  decoration,  the  result 
of  emotion  should  never  be  the  cause,  even  events  should  not  be  the 
cause  of  emotion  nor  should  emotion  itself  be  the  cause  of  poetry  or 
prose.  They  should  consist  of  an  exact  reproduction  of  either  an  outer 
or  inner  reality."  She  says  again,  this  time  in  What  Are  Masterpieces, 
"If  you  do  not  remember  while  you  are  writing,  it  may  seem  confused 
to  others  but  actually  it  is  clear  and  eventually  that  clarity  will  be  clear 
that  is  what  a  masterpiece  is,  but  if  you  remember  while  you  are  writing 
it  will  seem  clear  at  the  time  to  any  one  but  the  clarity  will  go  out  of  it 
that  is  what  a  masterpiece  is  not." 

In  whatever  style  it  pleases  Miss  Stein  to  write,  however,  it  is  her 
custom  to  deal  almost  exclusively  with  "actualities,"  portraits  of  people 
she  f{nows,  descriptions  of  places,  objects,  and  events  which  surround 
her  and  with  which  she  is  immediately  concerned.  This  quality,  true  of 
almost  all  of  her  writing  since  Three  Lives  and  The  Making  of  Amer- 
icans, her  perpetual  good  humor,  and  her  sense  of  fun,  which  leads  her 
occasionally  into  intentional  obscurantism,  all  assist  in  keeping  part  of 
her  prospective  audience  at  a  little  distance  behind  her.  There  is,  for 
instance,  in  Four  Saints  at  the  close  of  the  celebrated  Pigeons  on  the 
Grass  air  (an  air  the  meaning  of  which  has  been  elucidated  both  by 
Miss  Stein  and  Julian  Sawyer)  a  passage  which  runs  Lucy  Lily  Lily 
Lucy,  etc.,  beautifully  effective  as  sung  to  the  music  in  Virgil  Thom- 
son's score.  Those  who  believe  this  to  be  meaningless  embroidery,  like 
Hey,  nonny  nonny  in  an  Elizabethan  ballad,  are  perfectly  sane.  Miss 
Stein  enjoyed  the  sound  of  the  words,  but  the  words  did  not  come  to  her 
out  of  thin  air,  as  is  evidenced  by  a  discovery  I  made  recently.  Lucy  Lily 
Lamont  is  a  girl  who  lives  on  page  35  of  Wars  I  Have  Seen  and  from 
the  context  one  might  gather  that  Miss  Stein  knew  her  a  long  time  ago. 
Another  example  of  this  bewildering  kind  of  reference  is  the  "October 
15"  paragraph  in  As  a  Wife  Has  a  Cow  in  the  current  collection.  In 
my  note  to  that  idyl  I  have  referred  the  reader  to  the  probable  origin 
of  this  passage.  The  books  of  this  artist  are  indeed  full  of  these  sly  refer- 
ences to  matters  unknown  to  their  readers  and  only  someone  completely 
familiar  with  the  routine,  and  roundabout,  ways  of  Miss  Stein's  daily 
life  would  be  able  to  explain  every  line  of  her  prose,  but  without  even 


A  STEIN  SONG  xv 

mentioning  Joyce's  Ulysses  or  Eliot's  The  Waste  Land,  could  not  the 
same  thing  be  said  truthfully  of  Shakespeare's  Sonnets  ? 

No  wonder  Miss  Stein  exclaims  pleasurably  somewhere  or  other: 
"Also  there  is  why  is  it  that  in  this  epoch  the  only  real  literary  thinking 
has  been  done  by  a  woman." 

IV 

The  material  I  have  selected  for  this  Collection  contains  at  least  a  sample 
of  practically  every  period  and  every  manner  in  Gertrude  Stein's  career 
from  the  earliest  to  the  latest.  Her  five  earliest  works  (with  the  excep- 
tion of  Cultivated.  Motor  Automatism,  which  she  wrote  as  a  student) 
are  included,  all  but  one  complete,  and  it  is  significant  that  none  of 
them  resembles  its  neighbor  in  style.  Melanctha,  in  manner,  differs  from 
The  Making  of  Americans  and  the  same  may  be  said  of  Tender  Buttons, 
the  Portrait  of  Mable  Dodge  at  the  Villa  Curonia,  and  the  portraits  of 
Matisse  and  Picasso  published  in  Camera  WorJ^  in  1912.  Definite  dates 
do  not  mark  her  various  modes  into  periods  as  they  do  those  of  Picasso. 
Her  very  latest  books,  Wars  I  Have  Seen  and  Brewsie  and  Willie,  are 
not  written  in  perplexing  prose.  I  have,  I  think,  included  a  sample  of 
most  of  the  forms  in  which  she  has  worked.  Not  only  the  famous  Four 
Saints,  but  also  two  other  plays  from  an  earlier  period  are  to  be  discov- 
ered herein.  Examples  of  her  poetry,  of  her  lectures,  and  essays  may  be 
examined  in  these  pages.  Lack  of  space  has  prevented  me  from  includ- 
ing either  of  her  novels,  Ida  or  Lucy  Church  Amiably.  Miss  Furr  and 
Miss  Sl^ene  and  Melanctha,  however,  give  sufficient  indication  of  her 
talent  for  fiction.  Of  her  two  books  for  children,  The  World  Is  Round 
and  the  unpublished  (except  in  French  translation)  First  Reader  noth- 
ing is  offered  either.  On  the  other  hand,  every  element  of  her  so-called 
"difficult"  manner  is  represented  together  with  two  essays  attempting  to 
explain  this  manner  and,  of  course,  The  Autobiography  of  Alice  B. 
Tobias  explains  pretty  nearly  everything  to  everybody.  Dear  Gertrude, 
may  I  do  a  little  caressing  myself  and  say  truthfully  A  Collection  is  a 
Collection  is  a  Collection  ? 

CARL  VAN  VECHTEN 
New  Yor{,  April  n,  1946 


My  introduction  to  this  volume  was  written,  and  sent  to  the  printer, 
a  little  over  three  months  before  Gertrude  Stein's  death  in  Paris,  July  27, 
7946,  but  I  feel  that  it  is  wiser,  for  both  sentimental  and  practical  reasons, 
to  let  it  stand  unchanged. 

C.  V.  V. 


THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF 


Alice  B.  Toklas 


Written  in  1932,  published  by  Harcourt  Brace  and  Co.,  in  1933.  An 
abridged  version  had  appeared  previously  in  the  ATLANTIC  MONTHLY. 
In  EVERYBODY'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  Gertrude  Stein  has  written:  "Well  any- 
way it  was  a  beautiful  autumn  in  Bilignin  and  in  six  wee^s  I  wrote  THE 
AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS  and  it  was  published  and  it  became 
a  best  seller.  .  .  .  7  bought  myself  a  new  eight-cylinder  Ford  car  and 
the  most  expensive  coat  made  to  order  by  Hermes  and  fitted  by  the  man 
who  makes  horse  covers  for  race  horses  for  Basket  the  white  poodle  and 
two  collars  studded  for  Basket.  I  had  never  made  any  money  before  in 
my  life  and  I  was  most  excited!' 


1     Before  I  Came  to  Paris 


I  was  born  in  San  Francisco,  California.  I  have  in  consequence  always 
preferred  living  in  a  temperate  climate  but  it  is  difficult,  on  the  continent 
of  Europe  or  even  in  America,  to  find  a  temperate  climate  and  live  in  it. 
My  mother's  father  was  a  pioneer,  he  came  to  California  in  '49,  he 
married  my  grandmother  who  was  very  fond  of  music.  She  was  a  pupil 
of  Clara  Schumann's  father.  My  mother  was  a  quiet  charming  woman 
named  Emilie. 

My  father  came  of  polish  patriotic  stock.  His  grand-uncle  raised  a 
regiment  for  Napoleon  and  was  its  colonel.  His  father  left  his  mother 
just  after  their  marriage,  to  fight  at  the  barricades  in  Paris,  but  his 
wife  having  cut  off  his  supplies,  he  soon  returned  and  led  the  life  of 
a  conservative  well  to  do  land  owner. 

I  myself  have  had  no  liking  for  violence  and  have  always  enjoyed  the 
pleasures  of  needlework  and  gardening.  I  am  fond  of  paintings,  furni- 
ture, tapestry,  houses  and  flowers  and  even  vegetables  and  fruit-trees.  I 
like  a  view  but  I  like  to  sit  with  my  back  turned  to  it. 

I  led  in  my  childhood  and  youth  the  gently  bred  existence  of  my  class 
and  kind.  I  had  some  intellectual  adventures  at  this  period  but  very  quiet 
ones.  When  I  was  about  nineteen  years  of  age  I  was  a  great  admirer  of 
Henry  James.  I  felt  that  The  Awkward  Age  would  make  a  very  remark- 
able play  and  I  wrote  to  Henry  James  suggesting  that  I  dramatise  it.  I 
had  from  him  a  delightful  letter  on  the  subject  and  then,  when  I  felt 
my  inadequacy,  rather  blushed  for  myself  and  did  not  keep  the  letter. 
Perhaps  at  that  time  I  did  not  feel  that  I  was  justified  in  preserving  it, 
at  any  rate  it  no  longer  exists. 

Up  to  my  twentieth  year  I  was  seriously  interested  in  music.  I  studied 
and  practised  assiduously  but  shortly  then  it  seemed  futile,  my  mother 
had  died  and  there  Nvas  no  unconquerable  sadness,  but  there  was  no 
real  interest  that  led  me  on.  In  the  story  Ada  in  Geography  and  Plays 

3 


4  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Gertrude  Stein  has  given  a  very  good  description  of  me  as  I  was  at  that 
time. 

From  then  on  for  about  six  years  I  was  well  occupied.  I  led  a  pleasant 
life,  I  had  many  friends,  much  amusement  many  interests,  my  life  was 
reasonably  full  and  I  enjoyed  it  but  I  was  not  very  ardent  in  it.  This 
brings  me  to  the  San  Francisco  fire  which  had  as  a  consequence  that  the 
elder  brother  of  Gertrude  Stein  and  his  wife  came  back  from  Paris  to 
San  Francisco  and  this  led  to  a  complete  change  in  my  life. 

I  was  at  this  time  living  with  my  father  and  brother.  My  father  was  a 
quiet  man  who  took  things  quietly,  although  he  felt  them  deeply.  The 
first  terrible  morning  of  the  San  Francisco  fire  I  woke  him  and  told 
him,  the  city  has  been  rocked  by  an  earthquake  and  is  now  on  fire.  That 
will  give  us  a  black  eye  in  the  East,  he  replied  turning  and  going  to  sleep 
again.  I  remember  that  once  when  my  brother  and  a  comrade  had  gone 
horse-back  riding,  one  of  the  horses  returned  riderless  to  the  hotel,  the 
mother  of  the  other  boy  began  to  make  a  terrible  scene.  Be  calm  madam, 
said  my  father,  perhaps  it  is  my  son  who  has  been  killed.  One  of  his 
axioms  I  always  remember,  if  you  must  do  a  thing  do  it  graciously.  He 
also  told  me  that  a  hostess  should  never  apologise  for  any  failure  in  her 
household  arrangements,  if  there  is  a  hostess  there  is  insofar  as  there  is 
a  hostess  no  failure. 

As  I  was  saying  we  were  all  living  comfortably  together  and  there  had 
been  in  my  mind  no  active  desire  or  thought  of  change.  The  disturbance 
of  the  routine  of  our  lives  by  the  fire  followed  by  the  coming  of  Gertrude 
Stem's  older  brother  and  his  wife  made  the  difference. 

Mrs.  Stein  brought  with  her  three  little  Matisse  paintings,  the  first 
modern  things  to  cross  the  Atlantic.  I  made  her  acquaintance  at  this 
time  of  general  upset  and  she  showed  them  to  me,  she  also  told  me  many 
stories  of  her  life  in  Paris.  Gradually  I  told  my  father  that  perhaps  I 
would  leave  San  Francisco.  He  was  not  disturbed  by  this,  after  all  there 
was  at  that  time  a  great  deal  of  going  and  coming  and  there  were  many 
friends  of  mine  going.  Within  a  year  I  also  had  gone  and  I  had  come 
to  Paris.  There  I  went  to  see  Mrs.  Stein  who  had  in  the  meantime  re- 
turned to  Paris,  and  there  at  her  house  I  met  Gertrude  Stein.  I  was  im- 
pressed by  the  coral  brooch  she  wore  and  by  her  voice.  I  may  say  that 
only  three  times  in  my  life  have  I  met  a  genius  and  each  time  a  bell 
within  me  rang  and  I  was  not  mistaken,  and  I  may  say  in  each  case  it 
was  before  there  was  any  general  recognition  of  the  quality  of  genius  in 


BEFORE  I  CAME  TO  PARIS  5 

them.  The  three  geniuses  of  whom  I  wish  to  speak  are  Gertrude  Stein, 
Pablo  Picasso  and  Alfred  Whitehead.  I  have  met  many  important  peo- 
ple, I  have  met  several  great  people  but  I  have  only  known  three  first 
class  geniuses  and  in  each  case  on  sight  within  me  something  rang.  In 
no  one  of  the  three  cases  have  I  been  mistaken.  In  this  way  my  new 
full  life  began. 


2     My  Arrival  in  Paris 


This  was  the  year  1907.  Gertrude  Stein  was  just  seeing  through  the  press 
Three  Lives  which  she  was  having  privately  printed,  and  she  was  deep 
in  The  Making  of  Americans,  her  thousand  page  book.  Picasso  had  just 
finished  his  portrait  of  her  which  nobody  at  that  time  liked  except  the 
painter  and  the  painted  and  which  is  now  so  famous,  and  he  had  just 
begun  his  strange  complicated  picture  of  three  women,  Matisse  had 
just  finished  his  Bonheur  de  Vivre,  his  first  big  composition  which  gave 
him  the  name  of  fauve  or  a  zoo.  It  was  the  moment  Max  Jacob  has  since 
called  the  heroic  age  of  cubism.  I  remember  not  long  ago  hearing  Picasso 
and  Gertrude  Stein  talking  about  various  things  that  had  happened  at 
that  time,  one  of  them  said  but  all  that  could  not  have  happened  in  that 
one  year,  oh  said  the  other,  my  dear  you  forget  we  were  young  then  and 
we  did  a  great  deal  in  a  year. 

There  are  a  great  many  things  to  tell  of  what  was  happening  then  and 
what  had  happened  before,  which  led  up  to  then,  but  now  I  must  de- 
scribe what  I  saw  when  I  came. 

The  home  at  27  rue  de  Fleurus  consisted  then  as  it  does  now  of  a  tiny 
pavilion  of  two  stories  with  four  small  rooms,  a  kitchen  and  bath,  and 
a  very  large  atelier  adjoining.  Now  the  atelier  is  attached  to  the  pavilion 
by  a  tiny  hall  passage  added  in  1914  but  at  that  time  the  atelier  had  its 
own  entrance,  one  rang  the  bell  of  the  pavilion  or  knocked  at  the  door 
of  the  atelier,  and  a  great  many  people  did  both,  but  more  knocked  at 
the  atelier.  I  was  privileged  to  do  both.  I  had  been  invited  to  dine  on 
Saturday  evening  which  was  the  evening  when  everybody  came,  and 
indeed  everybody  did  come.  I  went  to  dinner.  The  dinner  was  cooked 
by  Helene.  I  must  tell  a  little  about  Helene. 

Helene  had  already  been  two  years  with  Gertrude  Stein  and  her 
brother.  She  was  one  of  those  admirable  bonnes  in  other  words  excellent 
maids  of  all  work,  good  cooks  thoroughly  occupied  with  the  welfare  of 
their  employers  and  of  themselves,  firmly  convinced  that  everything 

6 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  7 

purchasable  was  far  too  dear.  Oh  but  it  is  dear,  was  her  answer  to  any 
question.  She  wasted  nothing  and  carried  on  the  household  at  the 
regular  rate  of  eight  francs  a  day.  She  even  wanted  to  include  guests  at 
that  price,  it  was  her  pride,  but  of  course  that  was  difficult  since  she  for 
the  honour  of  her  house  as  well  as  to  satisfy  her  employers  always  had 
to  give  every  one  enough  to  eat.  She  was  a  most  excellent  cook  and  she 
made  a  very  good  souffle.  In  those  days  most  of  the  guests  were  living 
more  or  less  precariously,  no  one  starved,  some  one  always  helped  but 
still  most  of  them  did  not  live  in  abundance.  It  was  Braque  who  said 
about  four  years  later  when  they  were  all  beginning  to  be  known,  with 
a  sigh  and  a  smile,  how  life  has  changed  we  all  now  have  cooks  who 
can  make  a  souffle. 

Helene  had  her  opinions,  she  did  not  for  instance  like  Matisse.  She 
said  a  frenchman  should  not  stay  unexpectedly  to  a  meal  particularly  if 
he  asked  the  servant  beforehand  what  there  was  for  dinner.  She  said 
foreigners  had  a  perfect  right  to  do  these  things  but  not  a  frenchman 
and  Matisse  had  once  done  it.  So  when  Miss  Stein  said  to  her,  Monsieur 
Matisse  is  staying  for  dinner  this  evening,  she  would  say,  in  that  case  I 
will  not  make  an  omelette  but  fry  the  eggs.  It  takes  the  same  number  of 
eggs  and  the  same  amount  of  butter  but  it  shows  less  respect,  and  he 
will  understand. 

Helene  stayed  with  the  household  until  the  end  of  1913.  Then  her 
husband,  by  that  time  she  had  married  and  had  a  little  boy,  insisted  that 
she  work  for  others  no  longer.  To  her  great  regret  she  left  and  later  she 
always  said  that  life  at  home  was  never  as  amusing  as  it  had  been  at 
the  rue  de  Fleurus.  Much  later,  only  about  three  years  ago,  she  came 
back  for  a  year,  she  and  her  husband  had  fallen  on  bad  times  and  her  boy 
had  died.  She  was  as  cheery  as  ever  and  enormously  interested.  She  said 
isn't  it  extraordinary,  all  those  people  whom  I  knew  when  they  were 
nobody  are  now  always  mentioned  in  the  newspapers,  and  the  other 
night  over  the  radio  they  mentioned  the  name  of  Monsieur  Picasso. 
Why  they  even  speak  in  the  newspapers  of  Monsieur  Braque,  who  used 
to  hold  up  the  big  pictures  to  hang  because  he  was  the  strongest,  while 
the  janitor  drove  the  nails,  and  they  are  putting  into  the  Louvre,  just 
imagine  it,  into  the  Louvre,  a  picture  by  that  little  poor  Monsieur  Rous- 
seau, who  was  so  timid  he  did  not  even  have  courage  enough  to  knock 
at  the  door.  She  was  terribly  interested  in  seeing  Monsieur  Picasso  and 
his  wife  and  child  and  cooked  her  very  best  dinner  for  him,  but  how  he 


8  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

has  changed,  she  said,  well,  said  she,  I  suppose -that  is  natural  but  then 
he  has  a  lovely  son.  We  thought  that  really  Helene  had  come  back  to 
give  the  young  generation  the  once  over.  She  had  in  a  way  but  she  was 
not  interested  in  them.  She  said  they  made  no  impression  on  her  which 
made  them  all  very  sad  because  the  legend  of  her  was  well  known  to  all 
Paris.  After  a  year  things  were  going  better  again,  her  husband  was 
earning  more  money,  and  she  once  more  remains  at  home.  But  to  come 
back  to  1907. 

Before  I  tell  about  the  guests  I  must  tell  what  I  saw.  As  I  said  being 
invited  to  dinner  I  rang  the  bell  of  the  little  pavilion  and  was  taken  into 
the  tiny  hall  and  then  into  the  small  dining  room  lined  with  books.  On 
the  only  free  space,  the  doors,  were  tacked  up  a  few  drawings  by  Picasso 
and  Matisse.  As  the  other  guests  had  not  yet  come  Miss  Stein  took  me 
into  the  atelier.  It  often  rained  in  Paris  and  it  was  always  difficult  to  go 
from  the  little  pavilion  to  the  atelier  door  in  the  rain  in  evening  clothes, 
but  you  were  not  to  mind  such  things  as  the  hosts  and  most  of  the 
guests  did  not.  We  went  into  the  atelier  which  opened  with  a  yale  key 
the  only  yale  key  in  the  quarter  at  that  time,  and  this  was  not  so  much 
for  safety,  because  in  those  days  the  pictures  had  no  value,  but  because 
the  key  was  small  and  could  go  into  a  purse  instead  of  being  enormous 
as  french  keys  were.  Against  the  walls  were  several  pieces  of  large  Italian 
renaissance  furniture  and  in  the  middle  of  the  room  was  a  big  renais- 
sance table,  on  it  a  lovely  inkstand,  and  at  one  end  of  it  note-books 
neatly  arranged,  the  kind  of  note-books  french  children  use,  with  pic- 
tures of  earthquakes  and  explorations  on  the  outside  of  them.  And  on 
all  the  walls  right  up  to  the  ceiling  were  pictures.  At  one  end  of  the  room 
was  a  big  cast  iron  stove  that  Helene  came  in  and  filled  with  a  rattle, 
and  in  one  corner  of  the  room  was  a  large  table  on  which  were  horse- 
shoe nails  and  pebbles  and  little  pipe  cigarette  holders  which  one  looked 
at  curiously  but  did  not  touch,  but  which  turned  out  later  to  be  accumula- 
tions from  the  pockets  of  Picasso  and  Gertrude  Stein.  But  to  return  to 
the  pictures.  The  pictures  were  so  strange  that  one  quite  instinctively 
looked  at  anything  rather  than  at  them  just  at  first.  I  have  refreshed  my 
memory  by  looking  at  some  snap  shots  taken  inside  the  atelier  at  that 
time.  The  chairs  in  the  room  were  also  all  italian  renaissance,  not  very 
comfortable  for  short-legged  people  and  one  got  the  habit  of  sitting  on 
one's  legs.  Miss  Stein  sat  near  the  stove  in  a  lovely  high-backed  one  and 
she  peacefully  let  her  legs  hang,  which  was  a  matter  of  habit,  and  when 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  9 

any  one  of  the  many  visitors  came  to  ask  her  a  question  she  lifted  her- 
self up  out  of  this  chair  and  usually  replied  in  french,  not  just  now. 
This  usually  referred  to  something  they  wished  to  see,  drawings  which 
were  put  away,  some  german  had  once  spilled  ink  on  one,  or  some  other 
not  to  be  fulfilled  desire.  But  to  return  to  the  pictures.  As  I  say  they 
completely  covered  the  white-washed  walls  right  up  to  the  top  of  the 
very  high  ceiling!  The  room  was  lit  at  this  time  by  high  gas  fixtures. 
This  was  the  second  stage.  They  had  just  been  put  in.  Before  that  there 
had  only  been  lamps,  and  a  stalwart  guest  held  up  the  lamp  while  the 
others  looked.  But  gas  had  just  been  put  in  and  an  ingenious  american 
painter  named  Sayen,  to  divert  his  mind  from  the  birth  of  his  first  child, 
was  arranging  some  mechanical  contrivance  that  would  light  the  high 
fixtures  by  themselves.  The  old  landlady  extremely  conservative  did  not 
allow  electricity  in  her  houses  and  electricity  was  not  put  in  until  1914, 
the  old  landlady  by  that  time  too  old  to  know  the  difference,  her  house 
agent  gave  permission.  But  this  time  I  am  really  going  to  tell  about  the 
pictures. 

It  is  very  difficult  now  that  everybody  is  accustomed  to  everything  to 
give  some  idea  of  the  kind  of  uneasiness  one  felt  when  one  first  looked 
at  all  these  pictures  on  these  walls.  In  those  days  there  were  pictures  of 
all  kinds  there,  the  time  had  not  yet  come  when  there  were  only  Ce- 
zannes,  Renoirs,  Matisses  and  Picassos,  nor  as  it  was  even  later  only 
Cezannes  and  Picassos.  At  that  time  there  was  a  great  deal  of  Matisse, 
Picasso,  Renoir,  Cezanne  but  there  were  also  a  great  many  other  things. 
There  were  two  Gauguins,  there  were  Manguins,  there  was  a  big  nude 
by  Valloton  that  felt  like  only  it  was  not  like  the  Odalisque  of  Manet, 
there  was  a  Toulouse-Lautrec.  Once  about  this  time  Picasso  looking  at 
this  and  greatly  daring  said,  but  all  the  same  I  do  paint  better  than  he 
did.  Toulouse-Lautrec  had  been  the  most  important  of  his  early  influ- 
ences. I  later  bought  a  little  tiny  picture  by  Picasso  of  that  epoch.  There 
was  a  portrait  of  Gertrude  Stein  by  Valloton  that  might  have  been  a 
David  but  was  not,  there  was  a  Maurice  Denis,  a  little  Daumier,  many 
Cezanne  water  colours,  there  was  in  short  everything,  there  was  even  a 
little  Delacroix  and  a  moderate  sized  Greco.  There  were  enormous  Pi- 
cassos of  the  Harlequin  period,  there  were  two  rows  of  Matisses,  there 
was  a  big  portrait  of  a  woman  by  Cezanne  and  some  little  Cezannes, 
all  these  pictures  had  a  history  and  I  will  soon  tell  them.  Now  I  was 
confused  and  I  looked  and  I  looked  and  I  was  confused.  Gertrude  Stein 


10  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

and  her  brother  were  so  accustomed  to  this  state  of  mind  in  a  guest  that 
they  paid  no  attention  to  it.  Then  there  was  a  sharp  tap  at  the  atelier 
door.  Gertrude  Stein  opened  it  and  a  little  dark  dapper  man  came  in 
with  hair,  eyes,  face,  hands  and  feet  all  very  much  alive.  Hullo  Alfy,  she 
said,  this  is  Miss  Toklas.  How  do  you  do  Miss  Toklas,  he  said  very 
solemnly.  This  was  Alfy  Maurer  an  old  habitue  of  the  house.  He  had 
been  there  before  there  were  these  pictures,  when  there  were  only  Japa- 
nese prints,  and  he  was  among  those  who  used  to  light  matches  to  light 
up  a  little  piece  of  the  Cezanne  portrait.  Of  course  you  can  tell  it  is  a 
finished  picture,  he  used  to  explain  to  the  other  american  painters  who 
came  and  looked  dubiously,  you  can  tell  because  it  has  a  frame,  now 
whoever  heard  of  anybody  framing  a  canvas  if  ihe  picture  isn't  finished. 
He  had  followed,  followed,  followed  always  humbly  always  sincerely, 
it  was  he  who  selected  the  first  lot  of  pictures  for  the  famous  Barnes 
collection  some  years  later  faithfully  and  enthusiastically.  It  was  he  who 
when  later  Barnes  came  to  the  house  and  waved  his  cheque-book  said, 
so  help  me  God,  I  didn't  bring  him.  Gertrude  Stein  who  has  an  explo- 
sive temper,  came  in  another  evening  and  there  were  her  brother,  Alfy 
and  a  stranger.  She  did  not  like  the  stranger's  looks.  Who  is  that,  said 
she  to  Alfy.  I  didn't  bring  him,  said  Alfy.  He  looks  like  a  Jew,  said  Ger- 
trude Stein,  he  is  worse  than  that,  says  Alfy.  But  to  return  to  that  first 
evening.  A  few  minutes  after  Alfy  came  in  there  was  a  violent  knock 
at  the  door  and,  dinner  is  ready,  from  Helene.  It's  funny  the  Picassos 
have  not  come,  said  they  all,  however  we  won't  wait  at  least  Helene 
won't  wait.  So  we  went  into  the  court  and  into  the  pavilion  and  dining 
room  and  began  dinner.  It's  funny,  said  Miss  Stein,  Pablo  is  always 
promptness  itself,  he  is  never  early  and  he  is  never  late,  it  is  his  pride 
that  punctuality  is  the  politeness  of  kings,  he  even  makes  Fernande 
punctual.  Of  course  he  often  says  yes  when  he  has  no  intention  of  doing 
what  he  says  yes  to,  he  can't  say  no,  no  is  not  in  his  vocabulary  and  you 
have  to  know  whether  his  yes  means  yes  or  means  no,  but  when  he  says 
a  yes  that  means  yes  and  he  did  about  tonight  he  is  always  punctual. 
These  were  the  days  before  automobiles  and  nobody  worried  about  acci- 
dents. We  had  just  finished  the  first  course  when  there  was  a  quick 
patter  of  footsteps  in  the  court  and  Helene  opened  the  door  before  the 
bell  rang.  Pablo  and  Fernande  as  everybody  called  them  at  that  time 
walked  in.  He,  small,  quick  moving  but  not  restless,  his  eyes  having  a 
strange  faculty  of  opening  wide  and  drinking  in  what  he  wished  to  see. 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  11 

He  had  the  isolation  and  movement  of  the  head  of  a  bull-fighter  at  the 
head  of  their  procession.  Fernande  was  a  tall  beautiful  woman  with  a 
wonderful  big  hat  and  a  very  evidently  new  dress,  they  were  both  very 
fussed.  I  am  very  upset,  said  Pablo,  but  you  know  very  well  Gertrude 
I  am  never  late  but  Fernande  had  ordered  a  dress  for  the  vernissage  to- 
morrow and  it  didn't  come.  Well  here  you  are  anyway,  said  Miss  Stein, 
since  it's  you  Helene  won't  mind.  And  we  all  sat  down.  I  was  next  to 
Picasso  who  was  silent  and  then  gradually  became  peaceful.  Alfy  paid 
compliments  to  Fernande  and  she  was  soon  calm  and  placid.  After  a 
little  while  I  murmured  to  Picasso  that  I  liked  his  portrait  of  Gertrude 
Stein.  Yes,  he  said,  everybody  says  that  she  does  not  look  like  it  but  that 
does  not  make  any  difference,  she  will,  he  said.  The  conversation  soon 
became  lively  it  was  all  about  the  opening  day  of  the  salon  independant 
which  was  the  great  event  of  the  year.  Everybody  was  interested  in  all 
the  scandals  that  would  or  would  not  break  out.  Picasso  never  exhibited 
but  as  his  followers  did  and  there  were  a  great  many  stories  connected 
with  each  follower  the  hopes  and  fears  were  vivacious. 

While  he  were  having  coffee  footsteps  were  heard  in  the  court  quite 
a  number  of  footsteps  and  Miss  Stein  rose  and  said,  don't  hurry,  I  have 
to  let  them  in.  And  she  left. 

When  we  went  into  the  atelier  there  were  already  quite  a  number  of 
people  in  the  room,  scattered  groups,  single  and  couples  all  looking  and 
looking.  Gertrude  Stein  sat  by  the  stove  talking  and  listening  and  get- 
ting up  to  open  the  door  and  go  up  to  various  people  talking  and  listen- 
ing. She  usually  opened  the  door  to  the  knock  and  the  usual  formula 
was,  de  la  part  de  qui  venez-vous,  who  is  your  introducer.  The  idea  was 
that  anybody  could  come  but  for  form's  sake  and  in  Paris  you  have  to 
have  a  formula,  everybody  was  supposed  to  be  able  to  mention  the  name 
of  somebody  who  had  told  them  about  it.  It  was  a  mere  form,  really 
everybody  could  come  in  and  as  at  that  time  these  pictures  had  no  value 
and  there  was  no  social  privilege  attached  to  knowing  any  one  there, 
only  those  came  who  really  were  interested.  So  as  I  say  anybody  could 
come  in,  however,  there  was  the  formula.  Miss  Stein  once  in  opening 
the  door  said  as  she  usually  did  by  whose  invitation  do  you  come  and 
we  heard  an  aggrieved  voice  reply,  but  by  yours,  madame.  He  was  a 
young  man  Gertrude  Stein  had  met  somewhere  and  with  whom  she  had 
had  a  long  conversation  and  to  whom  she  had  given  a  cordial  invitation 
and  then  had  as  promptly  forgotten. 


12  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

The  room  was  soon  very  very  full  and  who  were  they  all.  Groups  of 
hungarian  painters  and  writers,  it  happened  that  some  hungarian  had 
once  been  brought  and  the  word  had  spread  from  him  throughout  all 
Hungary,  any  village  where  there  was  a  young  man  who  had  ambitions 
heard  of  27  rue  de  Fleurus  and  then  he  lived  but  to  get  there  and  a 
great  many  did  get  there.  They  were  always  there,  all  sizes  and  shapes, 
all  degrees  of  wealth  and  poverty,  some  very  charming,  some  simply 
rough  and  every  now  and  then  a  very  beautiful  young  peasant.  Then 
there  were  quantities  of  germans,  not  too  popular  because  they  tended 
always  to  want  to  see  anything  that  was  put  away  and  they  tended  to 
break  things  and  Gertrude  Stein  has  a  weakness  for  breakable  objects, 
she  has  a  horror  of  people  who  collect  only,  the  unbreakable.  Then 
there  was  a  fair  sprinkling  of  americans,  Mildred  Aldrich  would  bring 
a  group  or  Sayen,  the  electrician,  or  some  painter  and  occasionally  an 
architectural  student  would  accidentally  get  there  and  then  there  were 
the  habitues,  among  them  Miss  Mars  and  Miss  Squires  whom  Gertrude 
Stein  afterwards  immortalised  in  her  story  of  Miss  Furr  and  Miss 
Skeene.  On  that  first  night  Miss  Mars  and  I  talked  of  a  subject  then 
entirely  new,  how  to  make  up  your  face.  She  was  interested  in  types, 
she  knew  that  there  were  femme  decorative,  femme  d'interieur  and 
femme  intrigante;  there  was  no  doubt  that  Fernande  Picasso  was  a 
femme  decorative,  but  what  was  Madame  Matisse,  femme  d'interieur, 
I  said,  and  she  was  very  pleased.  From  time  to  time  one  heard  the  high 
Spanish  whinnying  laugh  of  Picasso  and  gay  contralto  outbreak  of  Ger- 
trude Stein,  people  came  and  went,  in  and  out.  Miss  Stein  told  me  to 
sit  with  Fernande.  Fernande  was  always  beautiful  but  heavy  in  hand. 
I  sat,  it  was  my  first  sitting  with  a  wife  of  a  genius. 

Before  I  decided  to  write  this  book  my  twenty-five  years  with  Ger- 
trude Stein,  I  had  often  said  that  I  would  write,  The  wives  of  geniuses 
I  have  sat  with.  I  have  sat  with  so  many.  I  have  sat  with  wives  who 
were  not  wives,  of  geniuses  who  were  real  geniuses.  I  have  sat  with  real 
wives  of  geniuses  who  were  not  real  geniuses.  I  have  sat  with  wives  of 
geniuses,  of  near  geniuses,  of  would  be  geniuses,  in  short  1  have  sat  very 
often  and  very  long  with  many  wives  and  wives  of  many  geniuses. 

As  I  was  saying  Fernande,  who  was  then  living  with  Picasso  and 
had  been  with  him  a  long  time  that  is  to  say  they  were  all  twenty-four 
years  old  at  that  time  but  they  had  been  together  a  long  time,  Fernande 
was  the  first  wife  of  a  genius  I  sat  with  and  she  was  not  the  least  amus- 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  13 

ing.  We  talked  hats.  Fernande  had  two  subjects  hats  and  perfumes.  This 
first  day  we  talked  hats.  She  liked  hats,  she  had  the  true  french  feeling 
about  a  hat,  if  a  hat  did  not  provoke  some  witticism  from  a  man  on  the 
street  the  hat  was  not  a  success.  Later  on  once  in  Montmartre  she  and  I 
were  walking  together.  She  had  on  a  large  yellow  hat  and  I  had  on  a 
much  smaller  blue  one.  As  we  were  walking  along  a  workman  stopped 
and  called  out,  there  go  the  sun  and  the  moon  shining  together.  Ah,  said 
Fernande  to  me  with  a  radiant  smile,  you  see  our  hats  are  a  success. 

Miss  Stein  called  me  and  said  she  wanted  to  have  me  meet  Matisse. 
She  was  talking  to  a  medium  sized  man  with  a  reddish  beard  and 
glasses.  He  had  a  very  alert  although  slightly  heavy  presence  and  Miss 
Stein  and  he  seemed  to  be  full  of  hidden  meanings.  As  I  came  up  I 
heard  her  say,  Oh  yes  but  it  would  be  more  difficult  now.  We  were  talk- 
ing, she  said,  of  a  lunch  party  we  had  in  here  last  year.  We  had  just 
hung  all  the  pictures  and  we  asked  all  the  painters.  You  know  how  paint- 
ers are,  I  wanted  to  make  them  happy  so  I  placed  each  one  opposite  his 
own  picture,  and  they  were  happy  so  happy  that  we  had  to  send  out  twice 
for  more  bread,  when  you  know  France  you  will  know  that  that  means 
that  they  were  happy,  because  they  cannot  eat  and  drink  without  bread 
and  we  had  to  send  out  twice  for  bread  so  they  were  happy.  Nobody 
noticed  my  little  arrangement  except  Matisse  and  he  did  not  until  just 
as  he  left,  and  now  he  says  it  is  a  proof  that  I  am  very  wicked,  Matisse 
laughed  and  said,  yes  I  know  Mademoiselle  Gertrude,  the  world  is  a 
theatre  for  you,  but  there  are  theatres  and  theatres,  and  when  you  listen 
so  carefully  to  me  and  so  attentively  and  do  not  hear  a  word  I  say  then 
I  do  say  that  you  are  very  wicked.  Then  they  both  began  talking  about 
the  vernissage  of  the  independent  as  every  one  else  was  doing  and  of 
course  I  did  not  know  what  it  was  all  about.  But  gradually  I  knew  and 
later  on  I  will  tell  the  story  of  the  pictures,  their  painters  and  their  fol- 
lowers and  what  this  conversation  meant. 

Later  I  was  near  Picasso,  he  was  standing  meditatively.  Do  you  think, 
he  said,  that  I  really  do  look  like  your  president  Lincoln.  I  had  thought 
a  good  many  things  that  evening  but  I  had  not  thought  that.  You  see, 
he  went  on,  Gertrude,  (I  wish  I  could  convey  something  of  the  simple 
affection  and  confidence  with  which  he  always  pronounced  her  name 
and  with  which  she  always  said,  Pablo.  In  all  their  long  friendship  with 
all  its  sometimes  troubled  moments  and  its  complications  this  has  never 
changed.)  Gertrude  showed  me  a  photograph  of  him  and  I  have  been 


14  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

trying  to  arrange  my  hair  to  look  like  his,  I  think  my  forehead  does. 
I  did  not  know  whether  he  meant  it  or  not  but  I  was  sympathetic.  I  did 
not  realise  then  how  completely  and  entirely  american  was  Gertrude 
Stein.  Later  I  often  teased  her,  calling  her  a  general,  a  civil  war  general 
of  either  or  both  sides.  She  had  a  series  of  photographs  of  the  civil  war, 
rather  wonderful  photographs  and  she  and  Picasso  used  to  pore  over 
them.  Then  he  would  suddenly  remember  the  Spanish  war  and  he  be- 
came very  Spanish  and  very  bitter  and  Spain  and  America  in  their  per- 
sons could  say  very  bitter  things  about  each  other's  country.  But  at  this 
my  first  evening  I  knew  nothing  of  all  this  and  so  I  was  polite  and  that 
was  all. 

And  now  the  evening  was  drawing  to  a  close.  Everybody  was  leaving 
and  everybody  was  still  talking  about  the  vernissage  of  the  independent. 
I  too  left  carrying  with  me  a  card  of  invitation  for  the  vernissage.  And 
so  this,  one  of  the  most  important  evenings  of  my  life,  came  to  an  end. 

I  went  to  the  vernissage  taking  with  me  a  friend,  the  invitation  I  had 
been  given  admitting  two.  We  went  very  early.  I  had  been  told  to  go 
early  otherwise  we  would  not  be  able  to  see  anything,  and  there  would 
be  no  place  to  sit,  and  my  friend  liked  to  sit.  We  went  to  the  building 
just  put  up  for  this  salon.  In  France  they  always  put  things  up  just  for 
the  day  or  for  a  few  days  and  then  take  them  down  again.  Gertrude 
Stein's  elder  brother  always  says  that  the  secret  of  the  chronic  employ- 
ment or  lack  of  unemployment  in  France  is  due  to  the  number  of  men 
actively  engaged  in  putting  up  and  taking  down  temporary  buildings. 
Human  nature  is  so  permanent  in  France  that  they  can  afford  to  be  as 
temporary  as  they  like  with  their  buildings.  We  went  to  the  long  low 
certainly  very  very  long  temporary  building  that  was  put  up  every  year 
for  the  independents.  When  after  the  war  or  just  before,  I  forget,  the 
independent  was  given  permanent  quarters  in  the  big  exposition  build- 
ing, the  Grand  Palais,  it  became  much  less  interesting.  After  all  it  is  the 
adventure  that  counts.  The  long  building  was  beautifully  alight  with 
Paris  light. 

In  earlier,  still  earlier  days,  in  the  days  of  Seurat,  the  independent  had 
its  exhibition  in  a  building  where  the  rain  rained  in.  Indeed  it  was  be- 
cause of  this,  that  in  hanging  pictures  in  the  rain,  poor  Seurat  caught 
his  fatal  cold.  Now  there  was  no  rain  coming  in,  it  was  a  lovely  day  and 
we  felt  very  festive.  When  we  got  in  we  were  indeed  early  as  nearly  as 
possible  the  first  to  be  there.  We  went  from  one  room  to  another  and 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  15 

quite  frankly  we  had  no  idea  which  of  the  pictures  the  Saturday  evening 
crowd  would  have  thought  art  and  which  were  just  the  attempts  of  what 
in  France  are  known  as  the  Sunday  painters,  workingmen,  hair-dressers 
and  veterinaries  and  visionaries  who  only  paint  once  a  week  when  they 
do  not  have  to  work.  I  say  we  did  not  know  but  yes  perhaps  we  did 
know.  But  not  about  the  Rousseau,  and  there  was  an  enormous  Rousseau 
there  which  was  the  scandal  of  the  show,  it  was  a  picture  of  the  officials 
of  the  republic,  Picasso  now  owns  it,  no  that  picture  we  could  not  know 
as  going  to  be  one  of  the  great  pictures,  and  that  as  Helene  was  to  say, 
would  come  to  be  in  the  Louvre.  There  was  also  there  if  my  memory  is 
correct  a  strange  picture  by  the  same  douanier  Rousseau,  a  sort  of  apo- 
theosis of  Guillaume  Apollinaire  with  an  aged  Marie  Laurencin  behind 
him  as  a  muse.  That  also  I  would  not  have  recognised  as  a  serious  work 
of  art.  At  that  time  of  course  I  knew  nothing  about  Marie  Laurencin 
and  Guillaume  Apollinaire  but  there  is  a  lot  to  tell  about  them  later. 
Then  we  went  on  and  saw  a  Matisse.  Ah  there  we  were  beginning  to 
feel  at  home.  We  knew  a  Matisse  when  we  saw  it,  knew  at  once  and  en- 
joyed it  and  knew  that  it  was  great  art  and  beautiful.  It  was  a  big  figure 
of  a  woman  lying  in  among  some  cactuses.  A  picture  which  was  after 
the  show  to  be  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus.  There  one  day  the  five  year  old 
little  boy  of  the  janitor  who  often  used  to  visit  Gertrude  Stein  who  was 
fond  of  him,  jumped  into  her  arms  as  she  was  standing  at  the  open  door 
of  the  atelier  and  looking  over  her  shoulder  and  seeing  the  picture  cried 
out  in  rapture,  oh  la  la  what  a  beautiful  body  of  a  woman.  Miss  Stein 
used  always  to  tell  this  story  when  the  casual  stranger  in  the  aggressive 
way  of  the  casual  stranger  said,  looking  at  this  picture,  and  what  is  that 
supposed  to  represent. 

In  the  same  room  as  the  Matisse,  a  little  covered  by  a  partition,  was  a 
hungarian  version  of  the  same  picture  by  one  Czobel  whom  I  remem- 
bered to  have  seen  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus,  it  was  the  happy  independent 
way  to  put  a  violent  follower  opposite  the  violent  but  not  quite  as  violent 
master. 

We  went  on  and  on,  there  were  a  great  many  rooms  and  a  great  many 
pictures  in  the  rooms  and  finally  we  came  to  a  middle  room  and  there 
was  a  garden  bench  and  as  there  were  people  coming  in  quite  a  few 
people  we  sat  down  on  the  bench  to  rest. 

We  had  been  resting  and  looking  at  every  body  and  it  was  indeed  the 
vie  de  Boheme  just  as  one  had  seen  it  in  the  opera  and  they  were  very 


16  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

wonderful  to  look  at.  Just  then  somebody  behind  us  put  a  hand  on  our 
shoulders  and  burst  out  laughing.  It  was  Gertrude  Stein.  You  have 
seated  yourselves  admirably,  she  said.  But  why,  we  asked.  Because  right 
here  in  front  of  you  is  the  whole  story.  We  looked  but  we  saw  nothing 
except  two  big  pictures  that  looked  quite  alike  but  not  altogether  alike. 
One  is  a  Braque  and  one  is  a  Derain,  explained  Gertrude  Stein.  They 
were  strange  pictures  of  strangely  formed  rather  wooden  blocked  figures, 
one  if  I  remember  rightly  a  sort  of  man  and  women,  the  other  three 
women.  Well,  she  said  still  laughing.  We  were  puzzled,  we  had  seen 
so  much  strangeness  we'did  not  know  why  these  two  were  any  stranger. 
She  was  quickly  lost  in  an  excited  and  voluble  crowd.  We  recognised 
Pablo  Picasso  and  Fernande,  we  thought  we  recognised  many  more,  to 
be  sure  everybody  seemed  to  be  interested  in  our  corner  and  we  stayed, 
but  we  did  not  know  why  they  were  so  especially  interested.  After  a 
considerable  interval  Gertrude  Stein  came  back  again,  this  time  evi- 
dently even  more  excited  and  amused.  She  leaned  over  us  and  said 
solemnly,  do  you  want  to  take  french  lessons.  We  hesitated,  why  yes 
we  could  take  french  lessons.  Well  Fernande  will  give  you  french  les- 
sons, go  and  find  her  and  tell  her  how  absolutely  you  are  pining  to  take 
french  lessons.  But  why  should  she  give  us  french  lessons,  we  asked. 
Because,  well  because  she  and  Pablo  have  decided  to  separate  forever. 
I  suppose  it  has  happened  before  but  not  since  I  have  known  them.  You 
know  Pablo  says  if  you  love  a  woman  you  give  her  money.  Well  now  it 
is  when  you  want  to  leave  a  woman  you  have  to  wait  until  you  have 
enough  money  to  give  her.  Vollard  has  just  bought  out  his  atelier  and 
so  he  can  afford  to  separate  from  her  by  giving  her  half.  She  wants  to 
install  herself  in  a  room  by  herself  and  give  french  lessons,  so  that  is  how 
you  come  in.  Well  what  has  that  to  do  with  these  two  pictures,  asked 
my  ever  curious  friend.  Nothing,  said  Gertrude  Stein  going  off  with  a 
great  shout  of  laughter. 

I  will  tell  the  whole  story  as  I  afterward  learnt  it  but  now  I  must  find 
Fernande  and  propose  to  her  to  take  french  lessons  from  her. 

I  wandered  about  and  looked  at  the  crowd,  never  had  I  imagined 
there  could  be  so  many  kinds  of  men  making  and  looking  at  pictures. 
In  America,  even  in  San  Francisco,  I  had  been  accustomed  to  see  women 
at  picture  shows  and  some  men,  but  here  there  were  men,  men,  men, 
sometimes  women  with  them  but  more  often  three  or  four  men  with  one 
woman,  sometimes  five  or  six  men  with  two  women.  Later  on  I  became 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN   PARIS  17 

accustomed  to  this  proportion.  In  one  of  these  groups  of  five  or  six  men 
and  two  women  I  saw  the  Picassos,  that  is  I  saw  Fernande  with  her 
characteristic  gesture,  one  ringed  forefinger  straight  in  the  air.  As  I 
afterwards  found  out  she  had  the  Napoleonic  forefinger  quite  as  long 
if  not  a  shade  longer  than  the  middle  finger,  and  this,  whenever  she  was 
animated,  which  after  all  was  not  very  often  because  Fernande  was^in- 
dolent,  always  went  straight  up  into  the  air.  I  waited  not  wishing  to 
break  into  this  group  of  which  she  at  one  end  and  Picasso  at  the  other 
end  were  the  absorbed  centres  but  finally  I  summoned  up  courage  to  go 
forward  and  draw  her  attention  and  tell  her  of  my  desire.  Oh  yes,  she 
said  sweetly,  Gertrude  has  told  me  of  your  desire,  it  would  give  me  great 
pleasure  to  give  you  lessons,  you  and  your  friend,  I  will  be  the  next  few 
days  very  busy  installing  myself  in  my  new  apartment.  Gertrude  is 
coming  to  see  me  the  end  of  the  week,  if  you  and  your  friend  would 
accompany  her  we  could  then  make  all  arrangements.  Fernande  spoke 
a  very  elegant  french,  some  lapses  of  course  into  montmartrois  that  I 
found  difficult  to  follow,  but  she  had  been  educated  to  be  a  school- 
mistress, her  voice  was  lovely  and  she  was  very  very  beautiful  with  a 
marvellous  complexion.  She  was  a  big  woman  but  not  too  big  because 
she  was  indolent  and  she  had  the  small  round  arms  that  give  the  charac- 
teristic beauty  to  all  french  women.  It  was  rather  a  pity  that  short  skirts 
ever  came  in  because  until  then  one  never  imagined  the  sturdy  french 
legs  of  the  average  french  woman,  one  thought  only  of  the  beauty  of  the 
small  rounded  arms.  I  agreed  to  Fernande's  proposal  and  left  her. 

On  my  way  back  to  where  my  friend  was  sitting  I  became  more  ac- 
customed not  so  much  to  the  pictures  as  to  the  people.  I  began  to  realise 
there  was  a  certain  uniformity  of  type.  Many  years  after,  that  is  just 
a  few  years  ago,  when  Juan  Gris  whom  we  all  loved  very  much  died, 
(he  was  after  Pablo  Picasso  Gertrude  Stein's  dearest  friend)  I  heard 
her  say  to  Braque,  she  and  he  were  standing  together  at  the  funeral,  who 
are  all  these  people,  there  are  so  many  and  they  are  so  familiar  and  I  do 
not  know  who  any  of  them  are.  Oh,  Braque  replied,  they  are  all  the 
people  you  used  to  see  at  the  vernissage  of  the  independent  and  the 
autumn  salon  and  you  saw  their  faces  twice  a  year,  year  after  year,  and 
that  is  the  reason  they  are  all  so  familiar. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  I  about  ten  days  later  went  to  Montmartre,  I  for 
the  first  time.  I  have  never  ceased  to  love  it.  We  go  there  every  now  and 
then  and  I  always  have  the  same  tender  expectant  feeling  that  I  had  then. 


18  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

It  is  a  place  where  you  were  always  standing  and  sometimes  waiting, 
not  for  anything  to  happen,  but  just  standing.  The  inhabitants  of  Mont- 
martre  did  not  sit  much,  they  mostly  stood  which  was  just  as  well  as  the 
chairs,  the  dining  room  chairs  of  France,  did  not  tempt  one  to  sit.  So  I 
went  to  Montmartre  and  I  began  my  apprenticeship  of  standing.  We 
first  went  to  see  Picasso  and  then  we  went  to  see  Fernande.  Picasso  now 
never  likes  to  go  to  Montmartre,  he  does  not  like  to  think  about  it  much 
less  talk  about  it.  Even  to  Gertrude  Stein  he  is  hesitant  about  talking  of 
it,  there  were  things  that  at  that  time  cut  deeply  into  his  Spanish  pride 
and  the  end  of  his  Montmartre  life  was  bitterness  and  disillusion,  and 
there  is  nothing  more  bitter  than  Spanish  disillusion. 

But  at  this  time  he  was  in  and  of  Montmartre  and  lived  in  the  rue 
Ravignan. 

We  went  to  the  Odeon  and  there  got  into  an  omnibus,  that  is  we 
mounted  on  top  of  an  omnibus,  the  nice  old  horse-pulled  omnibuses  that 
went  pretty  quickly  and  steadily  across  Paris  and  up  the  hill  to  the  place 
Blanche.  There  we  got  out  and  climbed  a  steep  street  lined  with  shops 
with  things  to  eat,  the  rue  Lepic,  and  then  turning  we  went  around  a 
corner  and  climbed  even  more  steeply  in  fact  almost  straight  up  and 
came  to  the  rue  Ravignan,  now  place  Emile-Goudeau  but  otherwise 
unchanged,  with  its  steps  leading  up  to  the  little  flat  square  with  its  few 
but  tender  little  trees,  a  man  carpentering  in  the  corner  of  it,  the  last 
time  I  was  there  not  very  long  ago  there  was  still  a  man  carpentering  in 
a  corner  of  it,  and  a  little  cafe  just  before  you  went  up  the  steps  where 
they  all  used  to  eat,  it  is  still  there,  and  to  the  left  the  low  wooden  build- 
ing of  studios  that  is  still  there. 

We  went  up  the  couple  of  steps  and  through  the  open  door  passing 
on  our  left  the  studio  in  which  later  Juan  Gris  was  to  live  out  his  martyr- 
dom but  where  then  lived  a  certain  Vaillant,  a  nondescript  painter  who 
was  to  lend  his  studio  as  a  ladies  dressing  room  at  the  famous  banquet 
for  Rousseau,  and  then  we  passed  a  steep  flight  of  steps  leading  down 
where  Max  Jacob  had  a  studio  a  little  later,  and  we  passed  another  steep 
little  stairway  which  led  to  the  studio  where  not  long  before  a  young 
fellow  had  committed  suicide,  Picasso  painted  one  of  the  most  wonder- 
ful of  his  early  pictures  of  the  friends  gathered  round  the  coffin,  we 
passed  all  this  to  a  larger  door  where  Gertrude  Stein  knocked  and  Picasso 
opened  the  door  and  we  went  in. 

He  was  dressed  in  what  the  french  call  the  singe  or  monkey  costume, 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  19 

overalls  made  of  blue  jean  or  brown,  I  think  his  was  blue  and  it  is  called 
a  singe  or  monkey  because  being  all  of  one  piece  with  a  belt,  if  the  belt 
is  not  fastened,  and  it  very  often  is  not,  it  hangs  down  behind  and  so 
makes  a  monkey.  His  eyes  were  more  wonderful  than  even  I  remem- 
bered, so  full  and  so  brown,  and  his  hands  so  dark  and  delicate  and  alert. 
We  went  further  in.  There  was  a  couch  in  one  corner,  a  very  small  stove 
that  did  for  cooking  and  heating  in  the  other  corner,  some  chairs,  the 
large  broken  one  Gertrude  Stein  sat  in  when  she  was  painted  and  a 
general  smell  of  dog  and  paint  and  there  was  a  big  dog  there  and  Picasso 
moved  her  about  from  one  place  to  another  exactly  as  if  the  dog  had 
been  a  large  piece  of  furniture.  He  asked  us  to  sit  down  but  as  all  the 
chairs  were  full  we  all  stood  up  and  stood  until  we  left.  It  was  my  first 
experience  of  standing  but  afterwards  I  found  that  they  all  stood  that 
way  for  hours.  Against  the  wall  was  an  enormous  picture,  a  strange 
picture  of  light  and  dark  colours,  that  is  all  I  can  say,  of  a  group,  an 
enormous  group  and  next  to  it  another  in  a  sort  of  a  red  brown,  of  three 
women,  square  and  posturing,  all  of  it  rather  frightening.  Picasso  and 
Gertrude  Stein  stood  together  talking.  I  stood  back  and  looked.  I  cannot 
say  I  realised  anything  but  I  felt  that  there  was  something  painful  and 
beautiful  there  and  oppressive  but  imprisoned.  I  heard  Gertrude  Stein 
say,  and  mine.  Picasso  thereupon  brought  out  a  smaller  picture,  a  rather 
unfinished  thing  that  could  not  finish,  very  pale  almost  white,  two 
figures,  they  were  all  there  but  very  unfinished  and  not  finishable. 
Picasso  said,  but  he  will  never  accept  it.  Yes,  I  know,  answered  Gertrude 
Stein.  But  just  the  same  it  is  the  only  one  in  which  it  is  all  there.  Yes,  I 
know,  he  replied  and  they  fell  silent.  After  that  they  continued  a  low 
toned  conversation  and  then  Miss  Stein  said,  well  we  have  to  go,  we  are 
going  to  have  tea  with  Fernande.  Yes,  I  know,  replied  Picasso.  How 
often  do  you  see  her,  she  said,  he  got  very  red  and  looked  sheepish.  I 
have  never  been  there,  he  said  resentfully.  She  chuckled,  well  anyway 
we  are  going  there,  she  said,  and  Miss  Toklas  is  going  to  have  lessons  in 
french.  Ah  the  Miss  Toklas,  he  said,  with  small  feet  like  a  Spanish 
woman  and  earrings  like  a  gypsy  and  a  father  who  is  king  of  Poland 
like  the  Poniatowskis,  of  course  she  will  take  lessons.  We  all  laughed 
and  went  to  the  door.  There  stood  a  very  beautiful  man,  oh  Agero,  said 
Picasso,  you  know  the  ladies.  He  looks  like  a  Greco,  I  said  in  english. 
Picasso  caught  the  name,  a  false  Greco,  he  said.  Oh  I  forgot  to  give  you 
these,  said  Gertrude  Stein  handing  Picasso  a  package  of  newspapers, 


20  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

they  will  console  you.  He  opened  them  up,  they  were  the  Sunday  sup- 
plement of  american  papers,  they  were  the  Katzenjammer  kids.  Oh  oui, 
Oh  oui,  he  said,  his  face  full  of  satisfaction,  merci  thanks  Gertrude,  and 
we  left. 

We  left  then  and  continued  to  climb  higher  up  the  hill.  What  did  you 
think  of  what  you  saw,  asked  Miss  Stein.  Well  I  did  see  something. 
Sure  you  did,  she  said,  but  did  you  see  what  it  had  to  do  with  those  two 
pictures  you  sat  in  front  of  so  long  at  the  vernissage.  Only  that  Picassos 
were  rather  awful  and  the  others  were  not.  Sure,  she  said,  as  Pablo  once 
remarked,  when  you  make  a  thing,  it  is  so  complicated  making  it  that 
it  is  bound  to  be  ugly,  but  those  that  do  it  after  you  they  don't  have  to 
worry  about  making  it  and  they  can  make  it  pretty,  and  so  everybody 
can  like  it  when  the  others  make  it. 

We  went  on  and  turned  down  a  little  street  and  there  was  another 
little  house  and  we  asked  for  Mademoiselle  Bellevallce  and  we  were  sent 
into  a  little  corridor  and  we  knocked  and  went  into  a  moderate  sized 
room  in  which  was  a  very  large  bed  and  a  piano  and  a  little  tea  table 
and  Fernande  and  two  others. 

One  of  them  was  Alice  Princet.  She  was  rather  a  madonna  like  crea- 
ture, with  large  lovely  eyes  and  charming  hair.  Fernande  afterwards  ex- 
plained that  she  was  the  daughter  of  a  workingman  and  had  the  brutal 
thumbs  that  of  course  were  a  characteristic  of  workingmen.  She  had 
been,  so  Fernande  explained,  for  seven  years  with  Princet  who  was  in 
the  government  employ  and  she  had  been  faithful  to  him  in  the  fashion 
of  Montmartre,  that  is  to  say  she  had  stuck  to  him  through  sickness  and 
health  but  she  had  amused  herself  by  the  way.  Now  they  were  to  be  mar- 
ried. Princet  had  become  the  head  of  his  small  department  in  the  gov- 
ernment service  and  it  would  be  necessary  for  him  to  invite  other  heads 
of  departments  to  his  house  and  so  of  course  he  must  regularise  the  re- 
lation. They  were  actually  married  a  few  months  afterward  and  it  was 
apropos  of  this  marriage  that  Max  Jacob  made  his  famous  remark,  it  is 
wonderful  to  long  for  a  woman  for  seven  years  and  to  possess  her  at 
last.  Picasso  made  the  more  practical  one,  why  should  they  marry  simply 
in  order  to  divorce.  This  was  a  prophecy. 

No  sooner  were  they  married  than  Alice  Princet  met  Derain  and 
Derain  met  her.  It  was  what  the  french  call  un  coup  de  foudre,  or  love 
at  first  sight.  They  went  quite  mad  about  each  other.  Princet  tried  to 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  21 

bear  it  but  they  were  married  now  and  it  was  different.  Beside  he  was 
angry  for  the  first  time  in  his  life  and  in  his  anger  he  tore  up  Alice's  first 
fur  coat  which  she  had  gotten  for  the  wedding.  That  settled  the  matter, 
and  within  six  months  after  the  marriage  Alice  left  Princet  never  to 
return.  She  and  Derain  went  off  together  and  they  have  never  separated 
since.  I  always  liked  Alice  Derain.  She  had  a  certain  wild  quality  that 
perhaps  had  to  do  with  her  brutal  thumbs  and  was  curiously  in  accord 
with  her  madonna  face. 

The  other  woman  was  Germaine  Pichot,  entirely  a  different  type. 
She  was  quiet  and  serious  and  Spanish,  she  had  the  square  shoulders 
and  the  unseeing  fixed  eyes  of  a  Spanish  woman.  She  was  very  gentle. 
She  was  married  to  a  Spanish  painter  Pichot,  who  was  rather  a  won- 
derful creature,  he  was  long  and  thin  like  one  of  those  primitive  Christs 
in  Spanish  churches  and  when  he  did  a  Spanish  dance  which  he  did  later 
at  the  famous  banquet  to  Rousseau,  he  was  awe  inspiringly  religious. 

Germaine,  so  Fernande  said,  was  the  heroine  of  many  a  strange  story, 
she  had  once  taken  a  young  man  to  the  hospital,  he  had  been  injured  in 
a  fracas  at  a  music  hall  and  all  his  crowd  had  deserted  him.  Germaine 
quite  naturally  stood  by  and  saw  him  through.  She  had  many  sisters, 
she  and  all  of  them  had  been  born  and  bred  in  Montmartre  and  they 
were  all  of  different  fathers  and  married  to  different  nationalities,  even 
to  turks  and  armenians.  Germaine,  much  later  was  very  ill  for  years  and 
she  always  had  around  her  a  devoted  coterie.  They  used  to  carry  her  in 
her  armchair  to  the  nearest  cinema  and  they,  and  she  in  the  armchair,  saw 
the  performance  through.  They  did  this  regularly  once  a  week.  I  imagine 
they  are  still  doing  it. 

The  conversation  around  the  tea  table  of  Fernande  was  not  lively, 
nobody  had  anything  to  say.  It  was  a  pleasure  to  meet,  it  was  even  an 
honour,  but  that  was  about  all.  Fernande  complained  a  little  that  her 
charwoman  had  not  adequately  dusted  and  rinsed  the  tea  things,  and 
also  that  buying  a  bed  and  a  piano  on  the  instalment  plan  had  elements 
of  unpleasantness.  Otherwise  we  really  none  of  us  had  much  to  say. 

Finally  she  and  I  arranged  about  the  french  lessons,  I  was  to  pay  fifty 
cents  an  hour  and  she  was  to  come  to  see  me  two  days  hence  and  we  were 
to  begin.  Just  at  the  end  of  the  visit  they  were  more  natural.  Fernande 
asked  Miss  Stein  if  she  had  any  of  the  comic  supplements  of  the  american 
papers  left.  Gertrude  Stein  replied  that  she  had  just  left  them  with  Pablo. 


22  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Fernanda  roused  like  a  lioness  defending  her  cubs.  That  is  a  brutality 
that  I  will  never  forgive  him,  she  said.  I  met  him  on  the  street,  he  had 
a  comic  supplement  in  his  hand,  I  asked  him  to  give  it  to  me  to  help  me 
to  distract  myself  and  he  brutally  refused.  It  was  a  piece  of  cruelty  that 
I  will  never  forgive.  I  ask  you,  Gertrude,  to  give  to  me  myself  the  next 
copies  you  have  of  the  comic  supplement.  Gertrude  Stein  said,  why  cer- 
tainly with  pleasure. 

As  we  went  out  she  said  to  me,  it  is  to  be  hoped  that  they  will  be  to- 
gether again  before  the  next  comic  supplements  of  the  Katzenjammer 
kids  come  out  because  if  I  do  not  give  them  to  Pablo  he  will  be  all  upset 
and  if  I  do  Fernande  will  make  an  awful  fuss.  Well  I  suppose  I  will  have 
to  lose  them  or  have  my  brother  give  them  to  Pabjo  by  mistake. 

Fernande  came  quite  promptly  to  the  appointment  and  we  proceeded 
to  our  lesson.  Of  course  to  have  a  lesson  in  french  one  has  to  converse 
and  Fernande  had  three  subjects,  hats,  we  had  not  much  more  to  say 
about  hats,  perfumes,  we  had  something  to  say  about  perfumes.  Per- 
fumes were  Fernande's  really  great  extravagance,  she  was  the  scandal 
of  Montmartre  because  she  had  once  bought  a  bottle  of  perfume  named 
Smoke  and  had  paid  eighty  francs  for  it  at  that  time  sixteen  dollars  and 
it  had  no  scent  but  such  wonderful  colour,  like  real  bottled  liquid  smoke. 
Her  third  subject  was  the  categories  of  furs.  There  were  three  categories 
of  furs,  there  were  first  category,  sables,  second  category  ermine  and 
chinchilla,  third  category  martin  fox  and  squirrel.  It  was  the  most  sur- 
prising thing  I  had  heard  in  Paris.  I  was  surprised.  Chinchilla  second, 
squirrel  called  fur  and  no  seal  skin. 

Our  only  other  conversation  was  the  description  and  names  of  the  dogs 
that  were  then  fashionable.  This  was  my  subject  and  after  I  had  de- 
scribed she  always  hesitated,  ah  yes,  she  would  say  illuminated,  you  wish 
to  describe  a  little  bclgian  dog  whose  name  is  griffon. 

There  we  were,  she  was  very  beautiful  but  it  was  a  little  heavy  and 
monotonous,  so  I  suggested  we  should  meet  out  of  doors,  at  a  tea  place 
or  take  walks  in  Montmartre.  That  was  better.  She  began  to  tell  me 
things.  I  met  Max  Jacob.  Fernande  and  he  were  very  funny  together. 
They  felt  themselves  to  be  a  courtly  couple  of  the  first  empire,  he  being 
le  vieux  marquis  kissing  her  hand  and  paying  compliments  and  she  the 
Empress  Josephine  receiving  them.  It  was  a  caricature  but  a  rather  won- 
derful one.  Then  she  told  me  about  a  mysterious  horrible  woman  called 


MY  ARRIVAL  IN  PARIS  23 

Marie  Laurencin  who  made  noises  like  an  animal  and  annoyed  Picasso. 
I  thought  of  her  as  a  horrible  old  woman  and  was  delighted  when  I  met 
the  young  chic  Marie  who  looked  like  a  Clouet.  Max  Jacob  read  my 
horoscope.  It  was  a  great  honour  because  he  wrote  it  down.  I  did  not 
realise  it  then  but  I  have  since  and  most  of  all  very  lately,  as  all  the  young 
gentlemen  who  nowadays  so  much  admire  Max  are  so  astonished  and 
impressed  that  he  wrote  mine  down  as  he  has  always  been  supposed 
never  to  write  them  but  just  to  say  them  off  hand.  Well  anyway  I  have 
mine  and  it  is  written. 

Then  she  also  told  me  a  great  many  stories  about  Van  Dongen  and 
his  dutch  wife  and  dutch  little  girl.  Van  Dongen  broke  into  notoriety 
by  a  portrait  he  did  of  Fernande.  It  was  in  that  way  that  he  created  the 
type  of  almond  eyes  that  were  later  so  much  the  vogue.  But  Fernande's 
almond  eyes  were  natural,  for  good  or  for  bad  everything  was  natural  in 
Fernande. 

Of  course  Van  Dongen  did  not  admit  that  this  picture  was  a  portrait 
of  Fernande,  although  she  had  sat  for  it  and  there  was  in  consequence 
much  bitterness.  Van  Dongen  in  these  days  was  poor,  he  had  a  dutch 
wife  who  was  a  vegetarian  and  they  lived  on  spinach.  Van  Dongen  fre- 
quently escaped  from  the  spinach  to  a  joint  in  Montmartre  where  the 
girls  paid  for  his  dinner  and  his  drinks. 

The  Van  Dongen  child  was  only  four  years  old  but  terrific.  Van 
Dongen  used  to  do  acrobatics  with  her  and  swing  her  around  his  head 
by  a  leg.  When  she  hugged  Picasso  of  whom  she  was  very  fond  she  used 
almost  to  destroy  him,  he  had  a  great  fear  of  her. 

There  were  many  other  tales  of  Germaine  Pichot  and  the  circus  where 
she  found  her  lovers  and  there  were  tales  of  all  the  past  and  present  life 
of  Montmartre.  Fernande  herself  had  one  ideal.  It  was  Evelyn  Thaw 
the  heroine  of  the  moment.  And  Fernande  adored  her  in  the  way  a  later 
generation  adored  Mary  Pickford,  she  was  so  blonde,  so  pale,  so  nothing 
and  Fernande  would  give  a  heavy  sigh  of  admiration. 

The  next  time  I  saw  Gertrude  Stein  she  said  to  me  suddenly,  is 
Fernande  wearing  her  earrings.  I  do  not  know,  I  said.  Well  notice,  she 
said.  The  next  time  I  saw  Gertrude  Stein  I  said,  yes  Fernande  is  wear- 
ing her  earrings.  Oh  well,  she  said,  there  is  nothing  to  be  done  yet,  it's 
a  nuisance  because  Pablo  naturally  having  nobody  in  the  studio  cannot 
stay  at  home.  In  another  week  I  was  able  to  announce  that  Fernande  was 


24  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

not  wearing  her  earrings.  Oh  well  it's  alright  then  she  has  no  more 
money  left  and  it  is  all  over,  said  Gertrude  Stein.  And  it  was.  A  week 
later  I  was  dining  with  Fernande  and  Pablo  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus, 

I  gave  Fernande  a  chinese  gown  from  San  Francisco  and  Pablo  gave 
'me  a  lovely  drawing. 

And  now  I  will  tell  you  how  two  americans  happened  to  be  in  the 
heart  of  an  art  movement  of  which  the  outside  world  at  that  time  knew 
nothing. 


3     Gertrude  Stein  in  Paris-! 903-1 907 


During  Gertrude  Stein's  last  two  years  at  the  Medical  School,  Johns 
Hopkins,  Baltimore,  1900-1903,  her  brother  was  living  in  Florence. 
There  he  heard  of  a  painter  named  Cezanne  and  saw  paintings  by  him 
owned  by  Charles  Loeser.  When  he  and  his  sister  made  their  home  in 
Paris  the  following  year  they  went  to  Vollard's  the  only  picture  dealer 
who  had  Cezannes  for  sale,  to  look  at  them. 

Vollard  was  a  huge  dark  man  who  lisped  a  little.  His  shop  was  on  the 
rue  Laffitte  not  far  from  the  boulevard.  Further  along  this  short  street 
was  Durand-Ruel  and  still  further  on  almost  at  the  church  of  the 
Martyrs  was  Sagot  the  ex-clown.  Higher  up  in  Montmartre  on  the  rue 
Victor-Masse  was  Mademoiselle  Weill  who  sold  a  mixture  of  pictures, 
books  and  bric-a-brac  and  in  entirely  another  part  of  Paris  on  the  rue 
Faubourg-Saint-Honore  was  the  ex-cafe  keeper  and  photographer 
Druet.  Also  on  the  rue  Laffitte  was  the  confectioner  Fouquet  where  one 
could  console  oneself  with  delicious  honey  cakes  and  nut  candies  and 
once  in  a  while  instead  of  a  picture  buy  oneself  strawberry  jam  in  a  glass 
bowl. 

The  first  visit  to  Vollard  has  left  an  indelible  impression  on  Gertrude 
Stein.  It  was  an  incredible  place.  It  did  not  look  like  a  picture  gallery. 
Inside  there  were  a  couple  of  canvases  turned  to  the  wall,  in  one  corner 
was  a  small  pile  of  big  and  little  canvases  thrown  pell  mell  on  top  of  one 
another,  in  the  centre  of  the  room  stood  a  huge  dark  man  glooming. 
This  was  Vollard  cheerful.  When  he  was  really  cheerless  he  put  his  huge 
frame  against  the  glass  door  that  led  to  the  street,  his  arms  above  his 
head,  his  hands  on  each  upper  corner  of  the  portal  and  gloomed  darkly 
into  the  street.  Nobody  thought  then  of  trying  to  come  in. 

They  asked  to  see  Cezannes.  He  looked  less  gloomy  and  became  quite 
polite.  As  they  found  out  afterward  Cezanne  was  the  great  romance  of 
Vollard's  life.  The  name  Cezanne  was  to  him  a  magic  word.  He  had  first 
learned  about  Cezanne  from  Pissarro  the  painter.  Pissarro  indeed  was 

25 


26  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

the  man  from  whom  all  the  early  Cezanne  lovers  heard  about  Cezanne. 
Cezanne 'at  that  time  was  living  gloomy  and  embittered  at  Aix-en- 
Provence.  Pissarro  told  Vollard  about  him,  told  Fabry,  a  Florentine,  who 
told  Loeser,  told  Picabia,  in  fact  told  everybody  who  knew  about 
Cezanne  at  that  time. 

There  were  Cezannes  to  be  seen  at  Vollard's.  Later  on  Gertrude  Stein 
wrote  a  poem  called  Vollard  and  Cezanne,  and  Henry  McBride  printed 
it  in  the  New  York  Sun.  This  was  the  first  fugitive  piece  of  Gertrude 
Stein's  to  be  so  printed  and  it  gave  both  her  and  Vollard  a  great  deal  of 
pleasure.  Later  on  when  Vollard  wrote  his  book  about  Cezanne,  Vollard 
at  Gertrude  Stein's  suggestion  sent  a  copy  of  the  "book  to  Henry  Mc- 
Bride. She  told  Vollard  that  a  whole  page  of  one  of  New  York's  big  daily 
papers  would  be  devoted  to  his  book.  He  did  not  believe  it  possible,  noth- 
ing like  that  had  ever  happened  to  anybody  in  Paris.  It  did  happen  and 
he  was  deeply  moved  and  unspeakably  content.  But  to  return  to  that 
first  visit. 

They  told  Monsieur  Vollard  they  wanted  to  see  some  Cezanne  land- 
scapes, they  had  been  sent  to  him  by  Mr.  Loeser  of  Florence.  Oh  yes, 
said  Vollard  looking  quite  cheerful  and  he  began  moving  about  the 
room,  finally  he  disappeared  behind  a  partition  in  the  back  and  was 
heard  heavily  mounting  the  steps.  After  a  quite  long  wait  he  came 
down  again  and  had  in  his  hand  a  tiny  picture  of  an  apple  with  most 
of  the  canvas  unpainted.  They  all  looked  at  this  thoroughly,  then  they 
said,  yes  but  you  see  what  we  wanted  to  see  was  a  landscape.  Ah  yes, 
sighed  Vollard  and  he  looked  even  more  cheerful,  after  a  moment  he 
again  disappeared  and  this  time  came  back  with  a  painting  of  a  back, 
it  was  a  beautiful  painting  there  is  no  doubt  about  that  but  the  brother 
and  sister  were  not  yet  up  to  a  full  appreciation  of  Cezanne  nudes  and 
so  they  returned  to  the  attack.  They  wanted  to  see  a  landscape.  This 
time  after  even  a  longer  wait  he  came  back  with  a  very  large  canvas  and 
a  very  little  fragment  of  a  landscape  painted  on  it.  Yes  that  was  it,  they 
said,  a  landscape  but  what  they  wanted  was  a  smaller  canvas  but  one  all 
covered.  They  said,  they  thought  they  would  like  to  see  one  like  that. 
By  this  time  the  early  winter  evening  of  Paris  was  closing  in  and  just 
at  this  moment  a  very  aged  charwoman  came  down  the  same  back  stairs, 
mumbled,  bon  soir  monsieur  et  madame,  and  quietly  went  out  of  the 
door,  after  a  moment  another  old  charwoman  came  down  the  same 
stairs,  murmured,  bon  soir  messieurs  et  mesdames  and  went  quietly  put 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN  PARIS  27 

of  the  door*  Gertrude  Stein  began  to  laugh  and  said  to  her  brother,  it 
is  all  nonsense,  there  is  no  Cezanne.  Vollard  goes  upstairs  and  tells  these 
old  women  what  to  paint  and  he  does  not  understand  us  and  they  do 
not  understand  him  and  they  paint  something  and  he  brings  it  down 
and  it  is  a  Cezanne.  They  both  began  to  laugh  uncontrollably.  Then 
they  recovered  and  once  more  explained  about  the  landscape.  They  said 
what  they  wanted  was  one  of  those  marvellously  yellow  sunny  Aix  land- 
scapes of  which  Loeser  had  several  examples.  Once  more  Vollard  went 
off  and  this  time  he  came  back  with  a  wonderful  small  green  landscape. 
It  was  lovely,  it  covered  all  the  canvas,  it  did  not  cost  much  and  they 
bought  it.  Later  on  Vollard  explained  to  every  one  that  he  had  been 
visited  by  two  crazy  americans  and  they  laughed  and  he  had  been  much 
annoyed  but  gradually  he  found  out  that  when  they  laughed  most  they 
usually  bought  something  so  of  course  he  waited  for  them  to  laugh. 

From  that  time  on  they  went  to  Vollard's  all  the  time.  They  had  soon 
the  privilege  of  upsetting  his  piles  of  canvases  and  finding  what  they 
liked  in  the  heap.  They  bought  a  tiny  little  Daumier,  head  of  an  old 
woman.  They  began  to  take  an  interest  in  Cezanne  nudes  and  they 
finally  bought  two  tiny  canvases  of  nude  groups.  They  found  a  very 
very  small  Manet  painted  in  black  and  white  with  Forain  in  the  fore- 
ground and  bought  it,  they  found  two  tiny  little  Renoirs.  They  fre- 
quently bought  in  twos  because  one  of  them  usually  liked  one  more  than 
the  other  one  did,  and  so  the  year  wore  on.  In  the  spring  Vollard  an- 
nounced a  show  of  Gauguin  and  they  for  the  first  time  saw  some 
Gauguins.  They  were  rather  awful  but  they  finally  liked  them,  and 
bought  two  Gauguins.  Gertrude  Stein  liked  his  sun-flowers  but  not  his 
figures  and  her  brother  preferred  the  figures.  It  sounds  like  a  great  deal 
now  but  in  those  days  these  things  did  not  cost  much.  And  so  the  winter 
went  on. 

There  were  not  a  great  many  people  in  and  out  of  Vollard's  but  once 
Gertrude  Stein  heard  a  conversation  there  that  pleased  her  immensely. 
Duret  was  a  well  known  figure  in  Paris.  He  was  now  a  very  old  and  a 
very  handsome  man.  He  had  been  a  friend  of  Whistler,  Whistler  had 
painted  him  in  evening  clothes  with  a  white  opera  cloak  over  his  arm. 
He  was  at  Vollard's  talking  to  a  group  of  younger  men  and  one  of  them 
Roussel,  one  of  the  Vuillard,  Bonnard,  the  post  impressionist  group, 
said  something  complainingly  about  the  lack  of  recognition  of  himself 
and  his  friends,  that  they  were  not  even  allowed  to  show  in  the  salon. 


28  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Duret  looked,  at  him  kindly,  my  young  friend,  he  said,  there  are  two 
kinds  of  art,  never  forget  this,  there  is  art  and  there  is  official  art.  How 
can  you,  my  poor  young  friend,  hope  to  be  official  art.  Just  look  at  your- 
self. Supposing  an  important  personage  came  to  France,  and  wanted  to 
meet  the  representative  painters  and  have  his  portrait  painted.  My  dear 
young  friend,  just  look  at  yourself,  the  very  sight  of  you  would  terrify 
him.  You  are  a  nice  young  man,  gentle  and  intelligent,  but  to  the  im- 
portant personage  you  would  not  seem  so,  you  would  be  terrible.  No 
they  need  as  representative  painter  a  medium  sized,  slightly  stout  man, 
not  too  well  dressed  but  dressed  in  the  fashion  of  his  class,  neither  bald 
or  well  brushed  hair  and  a  respectful  bow  with  it.  You  can  see  that  you 
would  not  do.  So  never  say  another  word  about  official  recognition,  or  if 
you  do  look  in  the  mirror  and  think  of  important  personages.  No,  my 
dear  young  friend  there  is  art  and  there  is  official  art,  there  always  has 
been  and  there  always  will  be. 

Before  the  winter  was  over,  having  gone  so  far  Gertrude  Stein  and 
her  brother  decided  to  go  further,  they  decided  to  buy  a  big  Cezanne 
and  then  they  would  stop.  After  that  they  would  be  reasonable.  They 
convinced  their  elder  brother  that  this  last  outlay  was  necessary,  and  it 
was  necessary  as  will  soon  be  evident.  They  told  Vollard  that  they 
wanted  to  buy  a  Cezanne  portrait.  In  those  days  practically  no  big 
Cezanne  portraits  had  been  sold.  Vollard  owned  almost  all  of  them.  He 
was  enormously  pleased  with  this  decision.  They  now  were  introduced 
into  the  room  above  the  steps  behind  the  partition  where  Gertrude  Stein 
had  been  sure  the  old  charwoman  painted  the  Cezannes  and  there  they 
spent  days  deciding  which  portrait  they  would  have.  There  were  about 
eight  to  choose  from  and  the  decision  was  difficult.  They  had  often  to  go 
and  refresh  themselves  with  honey  cakes  at  Fouquet's.  Finally  they  nar- 
rowed the  choice  down  to  two,  a  portrait  of  a  man  and  a  portrait  of  a 
woman,  but  this  time  they  could  not  afford  to  buy  twos  and  finally  they 
chose  the  portrait  of  the  woman. 

Vollard  said  of  course  ordinarily  a  portrait  of  a  woman  always  is  more 
expensive  than  a  portrait  of  a  man  but,  said  he  looking  at  the  picture 
very  carefully,  I  suppose  with  Cezanne  it  does  not  make  any  difference. 
They  put  it  in  a  cab  and  they  went  home  with  it.  It  was  this  picture  that 
Alfy  Maurer  used  to  explain  was  finished  and  that  you  could  tell  that  it 
was  finished  because  it  had  a  frame. 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN  PARIS  29 

It  was  an  important  purchase  because  in  looking  and  looking  at  this 
picture  Gertrude  Stein  wrote  Three  Lives. 

She  had  begun  not  long  before  as  an  exercise  in  literature  to  translate 
Flaubert's  Trois  Contes  and  then  she  had  this  Cezanne  and  she  looked 
at  it  and  under  its  stimulus  she  wrote  Three  Lives. 

The  next  thing  that  happened  was  in  the  autumn.  It  was  the  first  year 
of  the  autumn  salon,  the  first  autumn  salon  that  had  ever  existed  in  Paris 
and  they,  very  eager  and.  excited,  went  to  see  it.  There  they  found 
Matisse's  picture  afterwards  known  as  La  Femme  au  Chapeau. 

This  first  autumn  salon  was  a  step  in  official  recognition  of  the  out- 
laws of  the  independent  salon.  Their  pictures  were  to  be  shown  in  the 
Petit  Palais  opposite  the  Grand  Palais  where  the  great  spring  salon  was 
held.  That  is,  those  outlaws  were  to  be  shown  there  who  had  succeeded 
enough  so  that  they  began  to  be  sold  in  important  picture  shops.  These 
in  collaboration  with  some  rebels  from  the  old  salons  had  created  the 
autumn  salon. 

The  show  had  a  great  deal  of  freshness  and  was  not  alarming.  There 
were  a  number  of  attractive  pictures  but  there  was  one  that  was  not  at- 
tractive. It  infuriated  the  public,  they  tried  to  scratch  off  the  paint. 

Gertrude  Stein  liked  that  picture,  it  was  a  portrait  of  a  woman  with  a 
long  face  and  a  fan.  It  was  very  strange  in  its  colour  and  in  its  anatomy. 
She  said  she  wanted  to  buy  it.  Her  brother  had  in  the  meantime  found 
a  white-clothed  woman  on  a  green  lawn  and  he  wanted  to  buy  it.  So  as 
usual  they  decided  to  buy  two  and  they  went  to  the  office  of  the  secretary 
of  the  salon  to  find  out  about  prices.  They  had  never  been  in  the  little 
room  of  a  secretary  of  a  salon  and  it  was  very  exciting.  The  secretary 
looked  up  the  prices  in  his  catalogue.  Gertrude  Stein  has  forgotten  how 
much  and  even  whose  it  was,  the  white  dress  and  dog  on  the  green  grass, 
but  the  Matisse  was  five  hundred  francs.  The  secretary  explained  that 
of  course  one  never  paid  what  the  artist  asked,  one  suggested  a  price. 
They  asked  what  price  they  should  suggest.  He  asked  them  what  they 
were  willing  to  pay.  They  said  they  did  not  know.  He  suggested  that 
they  offer  four  hundred  and  he  would  let  them  know.  They  agreed  and 
left. 

The  next  day  they  received  word  from  the  secretary  that  Monsieur 
Matisse  had  refused  to  accept  the  offer  and  what  did  they  want  to  do. 
They  decided  to  go  over  to  the  salon  and  look  at  the  picture  again.  They 


30  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

did.  People  were  roaring  with  laughter  at  the  picture  and  scratching 
at  it.  Gertrude  Stein  could  not  understand  why,  the  picture  seemed  to 
her  perfectly  natural.  The  Cezanne  portrait  had  not  seemed  natural,  it 
had  taken  her  some  time  to  feel  that  it  was  natural  but  this  picture  by 
Matisse  seemed  perfectly  natural  and  she  could  not  understand  why  it 
infuriated  everybody.  Her  brother  was  less  attracted  but  all  the  same  he 
agreed  and  they  bought  it.  She  then  went  back  to  look  at  it  and  it  upset 
her  to  see  them  all  mocking  at  it.  It  bothered  her  and  angered  her  be- 
cause she  did  not  understand  why  because  to  her  it  was  so  alright,  just 
as  later  she  did  not  understand  why  since  the  writing  was  all  so'  clear 
and  natural  they  mocked  at  and  were  enraged  by  her  work. 

And  so  this  was  the  story  of  the  buying  of  La  Femme  au  Chapeau  by 
the  buyers  and  now  for  the  story  from  the  seller's  point  of  view  as  told 
some  months  after  by  Monsieur  and  Madame  Matisse.  Shortly  after  the 
purchase  of  the  picture  they  all  asked  to  meet  each  other.  Whether 
Matisse  wrote  and  asked  or  whether  they  wrote  and  asked  Gertrude 
Stein  does  not  remember.  Anyway  in  no  time  they  were  knowing  each 
other  and  knowing  each  other  very  well. 

The  Matisses  lived  on  the  quay  just  off  the  boulevard  Saint-Michel. 
They  were  on  the  top  floor  in  a  small  three-roomed  apartment  with  a 
lovely  view  over  Notre  Dame  and  the  river.  Matisse  painted  it  in  winter. 
You  went  up  and  up  the  steps.  In  those  days  you  were  always  going  up 
stairs  and  down  stairs.  Mildred  Aldrich  had  a  distressing  way  of  drop- 
ping her  key  down  the  middle  of  the  stairs  where  an  elevator  might 
have  been,  in  calling  out  goodbye  to  some  one  below,  from  her  sixth 
story,  and  then  you  or  she  had  to  go  all  the  way  up  or  all  the  way  down 
again.  To  be  sure  she  would  often  call  out,  never  mind,  I  am  bursting 
open  my  door.  Only  americans  did  that.  The  keys  were  heavy  and  you 
either  forgot  them  or  dropped  them.  Sayen  at  the  end  of  a  Paris  summer 
when  he  was  congratulated  on  looking  so  well  and  sun-burned,  said,  yes 
it  comes  from  going  up  and  down  stairs. 

Madame  Matisse  was  an  admirable  housekeeper.  Her  place  was  small 
but  immaculate.  She  kept  the  house  in  order,  she  was  an  excellent  cook 
and  provider,  she  posed  for  all  of  Matisse's  pictures.  It  was  she  who  was 
La  Femme  au  Chapeau,  lady  with  a  hat.  She  had  kept  a  little  millinery 
shop  to  keep  them  going  in  their  poorest  days.  She  was  a  very  straight 
dark  woman  with  a  long  face  and  a  firm  large  loosely  hung  mouth  like 
a  horse.  She  had  an  abundance  of  dark  hair.  Gertrude  Stein  always  liked 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PARIS  31 

the  way  she  pinned  her  hat  to  her  head  and  Matisse  once  made  a  draw- 
ing of  his  wife  making  this  characteristic  gesture  and  gave  it  &  Miss 
Stein.  She  always  wore  black.  She  always  placed  a  large  black  hat-pin 
well  in  the  middle  of  the  hat  and  the  middle  of  the  top  of  her  head  and 
then  with  a  large  firm  gesture,  down  it  came.  They  had  with  them  a 
daughter  of  Matisse,  a  daughter  he  had  had  before  his  marriage  and 
who  had  had  diphtheria  and  had  had  to  have  an  operation  and  for  many 
years  had  to  wear  a  black  ribbon  around  her  throat  with  a  silver  button. 
This  Matisse  put  into  many  of  his  pictures.  The  girl  was  exactly  like  her 
father  and  Madame  Matisse,  as  she  once  explained  in  her  melodramatic 
simple  way,  did  more  than  her  duty  by  this  child  because  having  read 
in  her  youth  a  novel  in  which  the  heroine  had  done  so  and  been  conse- 
quently much  loved  all  her  life,  had  decided  to  do  the  same.  She  herself 
had  had  two  boys  but  they  were  neither  of  them  at  that  time  living  with 
them.  The  younger  Pierre  was  in  the  south  of  France  on  the  borders  of 
Spain  with  Madame  Matisse's  father  and  mother,  and  the  elder  Jean 
with  Monsieur  Matisse's  father  and  mother  in  the  north  of  France  on 
the  borders  of  Belgium. 

Matisse  had  an  astonishing  virility  that  always  gave  one  an  extraor- 
dinary pleasure  when  one  had  not  seen  him  for  some  time.  Less  the  first 
time  of  seeing  him  than  later.  And  one  did  not  lose  the  pleasure  of  this 
virility  all  the  time  he  was  with  one.  But  there  was  not  much  feeling 
of  life  in  this  virility.  Madame  Matisse  was  very  different,  there  was  a 
very  profound  feeling  of  life  in  her  for  any  one  who  knew  hef . 

Matisse  had  at  this  time  a  small  Cezanne  and  a  small  Gauguin  and 
he  said  he  needed  them  both.  The  Cezanne  had  been  bought  with  his^ 
wife's  marriage  portion,  the  Gauguin  with  the  ring  which  was  the  only 
jewel  she  had  ever  owned.  And  they  were  happy  because  he  needed  these 
two  pictures.  The  Cezanne  was  a  picture  of  bathers  and  a  tent,  the 
Gauguin  the  head  of  a  boy.  Later  on  in  life  when  Matisse  became  a  very 
rich  man,  he  kept  on  buying  pictures.  He  said  he  knew  about  pictures 
and  had  confidence  in  them  and  he  did  not  know  about  other  things. 
And  so  for  his  own  pleasure  and  as  the  best  legacy  to  leave  his  children 
he  bought  Cezannes.  Picasso  also  later  when  he  became  rich  bought  pic- 
tures but  they  were  his  own.  He  too  believed  in  pictures  and  wants  to 
leave  the  best  legacy  he  can  to  his  son  and  so  keeps  and  buys  his  own. 

The  Matisses  had  had  a  hard  time.  Matisse  had  come  to  Paris  as  a 
young  man  to  study  pharmacy.  His  people  were  small  grain  merchants 


32  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

in  the  north  qf  France.  He  had  become  interested  in  painting,  had  begun 
copying  the  Poussins  at  the  Louvre  and  become  a  painter  fairly  without 
the  consent  of  his  people  who  however  continued  to  allow  him  the  very 
small  monthly  sum  he  had  had  as  a  student.  His  daughter  was  born  at 
this  time  and  this  further  complicated  his  life.  He  had  at  first  a  certain 
amount  of  success.  He  married.  Under  the  influence  of  the  paintings  of 
Poussin  and  Chardin  he  had  painted  still  life  pictures  that  had  consider- 
able success  at  the  Champ-de-Mars  salon,  one  of  the  two  big  spring 
salons.  And  then  he  fell  under  the  influence  of  Cezanne,  and  then  under 
the  influence  of  negro  sculpture.  All  this  developed  the  Matisse  of  the 
period  of  La  Femme  au  Chapeau.  The  year  after  his  very  considerable 
success  at  the  salon  he  spent  the  winter  painting  a  very  large  picture  of 
a  woman  setting  a  table  and  on  the  table  was  a  magnificent  dish  of  fruit. 
It  had  strained  the  resources  of  the  Matisse  family  to  buy  this  fruit,  fruit 
was  horribly  dear  in  Paris  in  those  days,  even  ordinary  fruit,  imagine 
how  much  dearer  was  this  very  extraordinary  fruit  and  it  had  to  keep 
until  the  picture  was  completed  and  the  picture  was  going  to  take  a 
long  time.  In  order  to  keep  it  as  long  as  possible  they  kept  the  room  as 
cold  as  posible,  and  that  under  the  roof  and  in  a  Paris  winter  was  not 
difficult,  and  Matisse  painted  in  an  overcoat  and  gloves  and  he  painted 
at  it  all  winter.  It  was  finished  at  last  and  sent  to  the  salon  where  the 
year  before  Matisse  had  had  considerable  success,  and  there  it  was  re- 
fused. And  now  Matisse's  serious  troubles  began,  his  daughter  was  very 
ill,  he  was  in  an  agonising  mental  struggle  concerning  his  work,  and  he 
had  lost  all  posibility  of  showing  his  pictures.  He  no  longer  painted  at 
home  but  in  an  atelier.  It  was  cheaper  so.  Every  morning  he  painted, 
every  afternoon  he  worked  at  his  sculpture,  late  every  afternoon  he  drew 
in  the  sketch  classes  from  the  nude,  and  every  evening  he  played  his 
violin.  These  were  very  dark  days  and  he  was  very  despairful.  His  wife 
opened  a  small  millinery  shop  and  they  managed  to  live.  The  two  boys 
were  sent  away  to  the  country  to  his  and  her  people  and  they  continued 
to  live.  The  only  encouragement  came  in  the  atelier  where  he  worked 
and  where  a  crowd  of  young  men  began  to  gather  around  him  and  be 
influenced  by  him.  Among  these  the  best  known  at  that  time  was 
Manguin,  the  best  known  now  Derain.  Derain  was  a  very  young  man 
at  that  time,  he  enormously  admired  Matisse,  he  went  away  to  the  coun- 
try with  them  to  Collioure  near  Perpignan,  and  he  was  a  great  comfort 
to  them  all.  He  began  to  paint  landscapes  outlining  his  trees  with  red 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PARIS  33 

and  he  had  a  sense  of  space  that  was  quite  his  own  and  which  first 
showed  itself  in  a  landscape  of  a  cart  going  up  a  road  bordered  with  trees 
lined  in  red.  His  paintings  were  coming  to  be  known  at  the  independent. 

Matisse  worked  every  day  and  every  day  and  every  day  and  he  worked 
terribly  hard.  Once  Vollard  came  to  see  him.  Matisse  used  to  love  to  tell 
the  story.  I  have  often  heard  him  tell  it.  Vollard  came  and  said  he  wanted 
to  see  the  big  picture  which  had  been  refused.  Matisse  showed  it  to  him. 
He  did  not  look  at  it.  He  talked  to  Madame  Matisse  and  mostly  about 
cooking,  he  liked  cooking  and  eating  as  a  frenchman  should,  and  so  did 
she.  Matisse  and  Madame  Matisse  were  both  getting  very  nervous  al- 
though she  did  not  show  it.  And  this  door,  said  Vollard  interestedly  to 
Matisse,  where  does  that  lead  to,  does  that  lead  into  a  court  or  does  that 
lead  on  to  a  stairway.  Into  a  court,  said  Matisse.  Ah  yes,  said  Vollard. 
And  then  he  left. 

The  Matisses  spent  days  discussing  whether  there  was  anything  sym- 
bolic in  Vollard's  question  or  was  it  idle  curiosity.  Vollard  never  had 
any  idle  curiosity,  he  always  wanted  to  know  what  everybody  thought 
of  everything  because  in  that  way  he  found  out  what  he  himself  thought. 
This  was  very  well  known  and  therefore  the  Matisses  asked  each  other 
and  all  their  friends,  why  did  he  ask  that  question  about  that  door.  Well 
at  any  rate  within  the  year  he  had  bought  the  picture  at  a  very  low  price 
but  he  bought  it,  and  he  put  it  away  and  nobody  saw  it,  and  that  was 
the  end  of  that. 

From  this  time  on  things  went  neither  better  nor  worse  for  Matisse 
and  he  was  discouraged  and  aggressive.  Then  came  the  first  autumn 
salon  and  he  was  asked  to  exhibit  and  he  sent  La  Femme  au  Chapeau  and 
it  was  hung.  It  was  derided  and  attacked  and  it  was  sold. 

Matisse  was  at  this  time  about  thirty-five  years  old,  he  was  de- 
pressed. Having  gone  to  the  opening  day  of  the  salon  and  heard  what 
was  said  of  his  picture  and  seen  what  they  were  trying  to  do  to  it  he 
never  went  again.  His  wife  went  alone.  He  stayed  at  home  and  was 
unhappy.  This  is  the  way  Madame  Matisse  used  to  tell  the  story. 

Then  a  note  came  from  the  secretary  of  the  salon  saying  that  there  had 
been  an  offer  made  for  the  picture,  an  offer  of  four  hundred  francs. 
Matisse  was  painting  Madame  Matisse  as  a  gypsy  holding  a  guitar.  This 
guitar  had  already  had  a  history.  Madame  Matisse  was  very  fond  of  tell- 
ing the  story.  She  had  a  great  deal  to  do  and  she  posed  beside  and  she 
was  very  healthy  and  sleepy.  One  day  she  was  posing,  he  was  painting, 


34  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

she  began  to  nod  and  as  she  nodded  the  guitar  made  noises.  Stop  it,  said 
Matisse,  wake  up.  She  woke  up,  he  painted,  she  nodded  and  the  guitar 
made  noises.  Stop  it,  said  Matisse,  wake  up.  She  woke  up  and  then  in 
a  little  while  she  nodded  again  the  guitar  made  even  more  noises.  Matisse 
furious  seized  the  guitar  and  broke  it.  And  added  Madame  Matisse  rue- 
fully, we  were  very  hard  up  then  and  we  had  to  have  it  mended  so  he 
could  go  on  with  the  picture.  She  was  holding  this  same  mended  guitar 
and  posing  when  the  note  from  the  secretary  of  the  autumn  salon  came. 
Matisse  was  joyful,  of  course  I  will  accept,  said  Matisse.  Oh  no,  said 
Madame  Matisse,  if  those  people  (ces  gens)  are  interested  enough  to 
make  an  offer  they  are  interested  enough  to  pay  the  price  you  asked,  and 
she  added,  the  difference  would  make  winter  clothes'for  Margot.  Matisse 
hesitated  but  was  finally  convinced  and  they  sent  a  note  saying  he  wanted 
his  price.  Nothing  happened  and  Matisse  was  in  a  terrible  state  and  very 
reproachful  and  then  in  a  day  or  two  when  Madame  Matisse  was  once 
more  posing  with  the  guitar  and  Matisse  was  painting,  Margot  brought 
them  a  little  blue  telegram.  Matisse  opened  it  and  he  made  a  grimace. 
Madame  Matisse  was  terrified,  she  thought  the  worst  had  happened. 
The  guitar  fell.  What  is  it,  she  said.  They  have  bought  it,  he  said.  Why 
do  you  make  such  a  face  of  agony  and  frighten  me  so  and  perhaps  break 
the  guitar,  she  said.  I  was  winking  at  you,  he  said,  to  tell  you,  because 
I  was  so  moved  I  could  not  speak. 

And  so,  Madame  Matisse  used  to  end  up  the  story  triumphantly,  you 
see  it  was  I,  and  I  was  right  to  insist  upon  the  original  price,  and 
Mademoiselle  Gertrude,  who  insisted  upon  buying  it,  who  arranged  the 
whole  matter. 

The  friendship  with  the  Matisses  grew  apace.  Matisse  at  that  time  was 
at  work  at  his  first  big  decoration,  Le  Bonheur  de  Vivre.  He  was  making 
small  and  larger  and  very  large  studies  for  it.  It  was  in  this  picture  that 
Matisse  first  clearly  realised  his  intention  of  deforming  the  drawing  of 
the  human  body  in  order  to  harmonise  and  intensify  the  colour  values 
of  all  the  simple  colours  mixed  only  with  white.  He  used  his  distorted 
drawing  as  a  dissonance  is  used  in  music  or  as  vinegar  or  lemons  are 
used  in  cooking  or  egg  shells  in  coffee  to  clarify.  I  do  inevitably  take  my 
comparisons  from  the  kitchen  because  I  like  food  and  cooking  and  know 
something  about  it.  However  this  was  the  idea.  Cezanne  had  come  to  his 
unfinishedness  and  distortion  of  necessity,  Matisse  did  it  by  intention. 

Little  by  little  people  began  to  come  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  to  see  the 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN   PARIS  35 

Matisses  and  the  Cezannes,  Matisse  brought  people,  everybody  brought 
somebody,  and  they  came  at  any  time  and  it  began  to  be  a  nuisance,  and 
it  was  in  this  way  that  Saturday  evenings  began.  It  was  also  at  this  time 
that  Gertrude  Stein  got  into  the  habit  of  writing  at  night.  It  was  only 
after  eleven  o'clock  that  she  could  be  sure  that  no  one  would  knock  at 
the  studio  door.  She  was  at  that  time  planning  her  long  book,  The  Mak- 
ing of  Americans,  she  was  struggling  with  her  sentences,  those  long 
sentences  that  had  to  be  so  exactly  carried  out.  Sentences  not  only  words 
but  sentences  and  always  sentences  have  been  Gertrude  Stein's  life  long 
passion.  And  so  she  had  then  and  indeed  it  lasted  pretty  well  to  the  war, 
which  broke  down  so  many  habits,  she  had  then  the  habit  of  beginning 
her  work  at  eleven  o'clock  at  night  and  working  until  the  dawn.  She 
said  she  always  tried  to  stop  before  the  dawn  was  too  clear  and  the  birds 
were  too  lively  because  it  is  a  disagreeable  sensation  to  go  to  bed  then. 
There  were  birds  in, many  trees  behind  high  walls  in  those  days,  now 
there  are  fewer.  But  often  the  birds  and  the  dawn  caught  her  and  she 
stood  in  the  court  waiting  to  get  used  to  it  before  she  went  to  bed.  She 
had  the  habit  then  of  sleeping  until  noon  and  the  beating  of  the  rugs 
into  the  court,  because  everybody  did  that  in  those  days,  even  her  house- 
hold did,  was  one  of  her  most  poignant  irritations. 

So  the  Saturday  evenings  began. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  were  often  at  the  Matisses  and  the 
Matisses  were  constantly  with  them.  Madame  Matisse  occasionally  gave 
them  a  lunch,  this  happened  most  often  when  some  relation  sent  the 
Matisses  a  hare.  Jugged  hare  prepared  by  Madame  Matisse  in  the  fash- 
ion of  Perpignan  was  something  quite  apart.  They  also  had  extremely 
good  wine,  a  little  heavy,  but  excellent.  They  also  had  a  sort  of  Madeira 
called  Roncio  which  was  very  good  indeed.  Maillol  the  sculptor  came 
from  the  same  part  of  France  as  Madame  Matisse  and  once  when  I  met 
him  at  Jo  Davidson's,  many  years  later,  he  told  me  about  all  these  wines. 
He  then  told  me  how  he  had  lived  well  in  his  student  days  in  Paris  for 
fifty  francs  a  month.  To  be  sure,  he  said,  the  family  sent  me  homemade 
bread  every  week  and  when'  I  came  I  brought  enough  wine  with  me  to 
last  a  year  and  I  sent  my  washing  home  every  month. 

Derain  was  present  at  one  of  these  lunches  in  those  early  days.  He 
and  Gertrude  Stein  disagreed  violently.  They  discussed  philosophy,  he 
basing  his  ideas  on  having  read  the  second  part  of  Faust  in  a  french 
translation  while  he  was  doing  his  military  service.  They  never  became 


36  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

friends.  Gertrude  Stein  was  never  interested  in  his  work.  He  had  a  sense 
of  space  but  for  her  his  pictures  had  neither  life  nor  depth  nor  solidity. 
They  rarely  saw  each  other  after.  Derain  at  that  time  was  constantly 
with  the  Matisses  and  was  of  all  Matisse's  friends  the  one  Madame 
Matisse  liked  the  best. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  happened  one 
day  to  find  the  picture  gallery  of  Sagot,  an  ex-circus  clown  who  had  a 
picture  shop  further  up  the  rue  Laffitte.  Here  he,  Gertrude  Stein's 
brother,  found  the  paintings  of  two  young  Spaniards,  one,  whose  name 
everybody  has  forgotten,  the  other  one,  Picasso.  The  work  of  both  of 
them  interested  him  and  he  bought  a  water  colour  by  the  forgotten  one, 
a  cafe  scene.  Sagot  also  sent  him  to  a  little  furniture  store  where  there 
were  some  paintings  being  shown  by  Picasso.  Gertrude  Stein's  brother 
was  interested  and  wanted  to  buy  one  and  asked  the  price  but  the  price 
asked  was  almost  as  expensive  as  Cezanne.  He  went  back  to  Sagot  and 
told  him.  Sagot  laughed.  He  said,  that  is  alright,  come  back  in  a  few 
days  and  I  will  have  a  big  one.  In  a  few  days  he  did  have  a  big  one  and 
it  was  very  cheap.  When  Gertrude  Stein  and  Picasso  tell  about  those 
days  they  are  not  always  in  agreement  as  to  what  happened  but  I  think 
in  this  case  they  agree  that  the  price  asked  was  a  hundred  and  fifty 
francs.  The  picture  was  the  now  well  known  painting  of  a  nude  girl 
with  a  basket  of  red  flowers. 

Gertrude  Stein  did  not  like  the  picture,  she  found  something  rather 
appalling  in  the  drawing  of  the  legs  and  feet,  something  that  repelled 
and  shocked  her.  She  and  her  brother  almost  quarrelled  about  this  pic- 
ture. He  wanted  it  and  she  did  not  want  it  in  the  house.  Sagot  gathering 
a  little  of  the  discussion  said,  but  that  is  alright  if  you  do  not  like  the 
legs  and  feet  it  is  very  easy  to  guillotine  her  and  only  take  the  head.  No 
that  would  not  do,  everybody  agreed,  and  nothing  was  decided. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  continued  to  be  very  divided  in  this 
matter  and  they  were  very  angry  with  each  other.  Finally  it  was  agreed 
that  since  he,  the  brother,  wanted  it  so  badly  they  would  buy  it,  and  in 
this  way  the  first  Picasso  was  brought  into  the  rue  de  Fleurus. 

It  was  just  about  this  time  that  Raymond  Duncan,  the  brother  of 
Isadora,  rented  an  atelier  in  the  rue  de  Fleurus.  Raymond  had  just 
come  back  from  his  first  trip  to  Greece  and  had  brought  back  with  him 
a  greek  girl  and  greek  clothes.  Raymond  had  known  Gertrude  Stein's 
elder  brother  and  his  wife  in  San  Francisco.  At  that  time  Raymond  was 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN   PARIS  37 

acting  as  advance  agent  for  Emma  Nevada  who  had  also  with  her 
Pablo  Casals  the  violincellist,  at  that  time  quite  unknown. 

The  Duncan  family  had  been  then  at  the  Omar  Khayam  stage,  they 
had  not  yet  gone  greek.  They  had  after  that  gone  italian  renaissance, 
but  now  Raymond  had  gone  completely  greek  and  this  included  a  greek 
girl.  Isadora  lost  interest  in  him,  she  found  the  girl  too  modern  a  greek. 
At  any  rate  Raymond  was  at  this  time  without  any  money  at  all  and  his 
wife  was  enceinte.  Gertrude  Stein  gave  him  coal  and  a  chair  for  Penel- 
ope to  sit  in,  the  rest  sat  on  packing  cases.  They  had  another  friend  who 
helped  them,  Kathleen  Bruce,  a  very  beautiful,  very  athletic  English 
girl,  a  kind  of  sculptress,  she  later  married  and  became  the  widow  of  the 
discoverer  of  the  South  Pole,  Scott.  She  had  at  that  time  no  money  to 
speak  of  either  and  she  used  to  bring  a  half  portion  of  her  dinner  every 
evening  for  Penelope.  Finally  Penelope  had  her  baby,  it  was  named  Ray- 
mond because  when  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  and  Raymond  Duncan 
went  to  register  it  they  had  not  thought  of  a  name.  Now  he  is  against 
his  will  called  Menalkas  but  he  might  be  gratified  if  he  knew  that  legally 
he  is  Raymond.  However  that  is  another  matter. 

Kathleen  Bruce  was  a  sculptress  and  she  was  learning  to  model  figures 
of  children  and  she  asked  to  do  a  figure  of  Gertrude  Stein's  nephew. 
Gertrude  Stein  and  her  nephew  went  to  Kathleen  Bruce's  studio.  There 
they,  one  afternoon,  met  H.  P.  Roche.  Roche  was  one  of  those  characters 
that  are  always  to  be  found  in  Paris.  He  was  a  very  earnest,  very  noble, 
devoted,  very  faithful  and  very  enthusiastic  man  who  was  a  general 
introducer.  He  knew  everybody,  he  really  knew  them  and  he  could  in- 
troduce anybody  to  anybody.  He  was  going  to  be  a  writer.  He  was  tall 
and  red-headed  and  he  never  said  anything  but  good  good  excellent 
and  he  lived  with  his  mother  and  his  grandmother.  He  had  done  a 
great  many  things,  he  had  gone  to  the  austrian  mountains  with  the  aus-r 
trians,  he  had  gone  to  Germany  with  the  germans  and  he  had  gone  to 
Hungary  with  hungarians  and  he  had  gone  to  England  with  the  eng- 
lish.  He  had  not  gone  to  Russia  although  he  had  been  in  Paris  with 
russians.  As  Picasso  always  said  of  him,  Roche  is  very  nice  but  he  is  only 
a  translation. 

Later  he  .was  often  at  27  rue  de  Fleurus  with  various  nationalities  and 
Gertrude  Stein  rather  liked  him.  She  always  said  of  him  he  is  so  faithful, 
perhaps  one  need  never  see  him  again  but  one  knows  that  somewhere 
Roche  is  faithful.  He  did  give  her  one  delightful  sensation  in  the  very 


38  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

early  days  of  their  acquaintance.  Three  Lives,  Gertrude  Stein's  first  book 
was  just  then  being  written  and  Roche  who  could  read  english  was  very 
impressed  by  it.  One  day  Gertrude  Stein  was  saying  something  about 
herself  and  Roche  said  good  good  excellent  that  is  very  important  for 
your  biography.  She  was  terribly  touched,  it  was  the  first  time  that  she 
really  realised  that  some  time  she  would  have  a  biography.  It  is  quite 
true  that  although  she  has  not  seen  him  for  years  somewhere  Roche  is 
probably  perfectly  faithful. 

But  to  come  back  to  Roche  at  Kathleen  Bruce's  studio.  They  all  talked 
about  one  thing  and  another  and  Gertrude  Stein  happened  to  mention 
that  they  had  just  bought  a  picture  from  Sagot  by  a  young  Spaniard 
named  Picasso.  Good  good  excellent,  said  Roche,  he  is  a  very  interesting 
young  fellow,  I  know  him.  Oh  do  you,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  well  enough 
to  take  somebody  to  see  him.  Why  certainly,  said  Roche.  Very  well,  said 
Gertrude  Stein,  my  brother  I  know  is  very  anxious  to  make  his  acquaint- 
ance. And  there  and  then  the  appointment  was  made  and  shortly  after 
Roche  and  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  went  to  see  Picasso. 

It  was  only  a  very  short  time  after  this  that  Picasso  began  the  portrait 
of  Gertrude  Stein,  now  so  widely  known,  but  just  how  that  came  about 
is  a  little  vague  in  everybody's  mind.  I  have  heard  Picasso  and  Gertrude 
Stein  talk  about  it  often  and  they  neither  of  them  can  remember.  They 
can  remember  the  first  time  that  Picasso  dined  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  and 
they  can  remember  the  first  time  Gertrude  Stein  posed  for  her  portrait 
at  rue  Ravignan  but  in  between  there  is  a  blank.  How  it  came  about 
they  do  not  know.  Picasso  had  never  had  anybody  pose  for  him  since  he 
was  sixteen  years  old,  he  was  then  twenty-four  and  Gertrude  Stein  had 
never  thought  of  having  her  portrait  painted,  and  they  do  not  either  of 
them  know  how  it  came  about.  Anyway  it  did  and  she  posed  to  him  for 
this  portrait  ninety  times  and  a  great  deal  happened  during  that  time. 
To  go  back  to  all  the  first  times. 

Picasso  and  Fernande  came  to  dinner,  Picasso  in  those  days  was,  what 
a  dear  friend  and  schoolmate  of  mine,  Nellie  Jacot,  called,  a  good-look- 
ing bootblack.  He  was  thin  dark,  alive  with  big  pools  of  eyes  and  a 
violent  but  not  rough  way.  He  was  sitting  next  to  Gertrude  Stein  at 
dinner  and  she  took  up  a  piece  of  bread.  This,  said  Picasso,  snatching  it 
back  with  violence,  this  piece  of  bread  is  mine.  She  laughed  and  he 
looked  sheepish.  That  was  the  beginning  of  their  intimacy. 

That  evening  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  took  out  portfolio  after  port- 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN  PARIS  39 

folio  of  Japanese  prints  to  show  Picasso,  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  was 
fond  of  Japanese  prints.  Picasso  solemnly  and  obediently  looked  at  print 
after  print  and  listened  to  the  descriptions.  He  said  under  his  breath  to 
Gertrude  Stein,  he  is  very  nice,  your  brother,  but  like  all  americans,  like 
Haviland,  he  shows  you  Japanese  prints.  Moi  j'aime  pas  93,  no  I  don't 
care  for  it.  As  I  say  Gertrude  Stein  and  Pablo  Picasso  immediately 
understood  each  other. 

Then  there  was  the  first  time  of  posing.  The  atelier  of  Picasso  I  have 
already  described.  In  those  days  there  was  even  more  disorder,  more 
coming  and  going,  more  red-hot  fire  in  the  stove,  more  cooking  and 
more  interruptions.  There  was  a  large  broken  armchair  where  Gertrude 
Stein  posed.  There  was  a  couch  where  everybody  sat  and  slept.  There 
was  a  little  kitchen  chair  upon  which  Picasso  sat  to  paint,  there  was  a 
large  easel  and  there  were  many  very  large  canvases.  It  was  at  the 
height  of  the  end  of  the  Harlequin  period  when  the  canvases  were 
enormous,  the  figures  also,  and  the  groups. 

There  was  a  little  fox  terrier  there  that  had  something  the  matter 
with  it  and  had  been  and  was  again  about  to  be  taken  to  the  veterinary. 
No  frenchman  or  frenchwoman  is  so  poor  or  so  careless  or  so  avaricious 
but  that  they  can  and  do  constantly  take  their  pet  to  the  vet. 

Fernande  was  as  always,  very  large,  very  beautiful  and  very  gracious. 
She  offered  to  read  La  Fontaine's  stories  aloud  to  amuse  Gertrude  Stein 
while  Gertrude  Stein  posed.  She  took  her  pose,  Picasso  sat  very  tight  on 
his  chair  and  very  close  to  his  canvas  and  on  a  very  small  palette  which 
was  of  a  uniform  brown  grey  colour,  mixed  some  more  brown  grey  and 
the  painting  .began.  This  was  the  first  of  some  eighty  or  ninety  sittings. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  afternoon  Gertrude  Stein's  two  brothers  and 
her  sister-in-law  and  Andrew  Green  came  to  see.  They  were  all  excited 
at  the  beauty  of  the  sketch  and  Andrew  Green  begged  and  begged  that 
it  should  be  left  as  it  was.  But  Picasso  shook  his  head  and  said,  non. 

It  is  too  bad  but  in  those  days  no  one  thought  of  taking  a  photograph 
of  the  picture  as  it  was  then  and  of  course  no  one  of  the  group  that  saw 
it  then  remembers  at  all  what  it  looked  like  any  more  than  do  Picasso 
or  Gertrude  Stein. 

Andrew  Green,  none  of  them  knew  how  they  had  met  Andrew  Green, 
he  was  the  great-nephew  of  Andrew  Green  known  as  the  father  of 
Greater  New  York.  He  had  been  born  and  reared  in  Chicago  but  he  was 
a  typical  tall  gaunt  new  englander,  blond  and  gentle.  He  had  a  prodi- 


40  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

gious  memory  and  could  recite  all  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost  by  heart 
and  also  all  the  translations  of  chinese  poems  of  which  Gertrude  Stein 
was  very  fond.  He  had  been  in  China  and  he  was  later  to  live  perma- 
nently in  the  South  Sea  islands  after  he  finally  inherited  quite  a  fortune 
from  his  great-uncle  who  was  fond  of  Milton's  Paradise  Lost.  He  had  a 
passion  for  oriental  stuffs.  He  adored  as  he  said  a  simple  centre  and  a 
continuous  design.  He  loved  pictures  in  museums  and  he  hated  every- 
thing modern.  Once  when  during  the  family's  absence  he  had  stayed  at 
the  rue  de  Fleurus  for  a  month,  he  had  outraged  Helene's  feelings  by 
having  his  bed-sheets  changed  every  day  and  covering  all  the  pictures 
with  cashmere  shawls.  He  said  the  pictures  were  very  restful,  he  could 
not  deny  that,  but  he  could  not  bear  it.  He  said  that  after  the  month  was 
over  that  he  had  of  course  never  come  to  like  the  new  pictures  but  the 
worst  of  it  was  that  not  liking  them  he  had  lost  his  taste  for  the  old 
and  he  never  again  in  his  life  could  go  to  any  museum  or  look  at  any 
picture.  He  was  tremendously  impressed  by  Fernande's  beauty.  He  was 
indeed  quite  overcome.  I  would,  he  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  if  I  could 
talk  french,  I  would  make  love  to  her  and  take  her  away  from  that  little 
Picasso.  Do  you  make  love  with  words,  laughed  Gertrude  Stein.  He 
went  away  before  I  came  to  Paris  and  he  came  back  eighteen  years  later 
and  he  was  very  dull. 

This  year  was  comparatively  a  quiet  one.  The  Matisses  were  in  the 
South  of  France  all  winter,  at  Collioure  on  the  Mediterranean  coast  not 
far  from  Perpignan,  where  Madame  Matisse's  people  lived.  The  Ray- 
mond Duncans  had  disappeared  after  having  been  joined  first  by  a 
sister  of  Penelope  who  was  a  little  actress  and  was  very  far  from  being 
dressed  greek,  she  was  as  nearly  as  she  possibly  could  be  a  little  Parisian. 
She  had  accompanying  her  a  very  large  dark  greek  cousin.  He  came  in 
to  see  Gertrude  Stein  and  he  looked  around  and  he  announced,  I  am 
greek,  that  is  the  same  as  saying  that  I  have  perfect  taste  and  I  do  not 
care  for  any  of  these  pictures.  Very  shortly  Raymond,  his  wife  and  baby, 
the  sister-in-law  and  the  greek  cousin  disappeared  out  of  the  court  at 
27  due  de  Fleurus  and  were  succeeded  by  a  german  lady. 

This  german  lady  was  the  niece  and  god-daughter  of  german  field- 
marshals  and  her  brother  was  a  captin  in  the  germany  navy.  Her  mother 
was  english  and  she  herself  had  played  the  harp  at  the  bavarian  court. 
She  was  very  amusing  and  had  some  strange  friends,  both  english  and 
french.  She  was  a  sculptress  and  she  made  a  typical  german  sculpture  of 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN   PARIS  4! 

little  Roger,  the  concierge's  boy.  She  made  three  heads  of  him,  one 
laughing,  one  crying  and  one  sticking  out  his  tongue,  all  three  together 
on  one  pedestal.  She  sold  this  piece  to  the  royal  museum  at  Potsdam. 
The  concierge  during  the  war  often  wept  at  the  thought  of  her  Roger 
being  there,  sculptured,  in  the  museum  at  Potsdam.  She  invented  clothes 
that  could  be  worn  inside  out  and  taken  to  pieces  and  be  made  long  or 
short  and  she  showed  these  to  everybody  with  great  pride.  She  had  as 
an  instructor  in  painting  a  weird  looking  frenchman  one  who  looked 
exactly  like  the  pictures  of  Huckleberry  Finn's  father.  She  explained 
that  she  employed  him  out  of  charity,  he  had  won  a  gold  medal  at  the 
salon  in  his  youth  and  after  that  had  had  no  success.  She  also  said  that 
she  never  employed  a  servant  of  the  servant  class.  She  said  that  decayed 
gentlewomen  were  more  appetising  and  more  efficient  and  she  always 
had  some  widow  of  some  army  officer  or  functionary  sewing  or  posing 
for  her.  She  had  an  austrian  maid  for  a  while  who  cooked  perfectly 
delicious  austrian  pastry  but  she  did  not  keep  her  long.  She  was  in  short 
very  amusing  and  she  and  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  talk  to  each  other  in 
the  court.  She  always  wanted  to  know  what  Gertrude  Stein  thought  of 
everybody  who  came  in  and  out.  She  wanted  to  know  if  she  came  to  her 
conclusions  by  deduction,  observation,  imagination  or  analysis.  She  was 
amusing  and  then  she  disappeared  and  nobody  thought  anything  about 
her  until  the  war  came  and  then  everybody  wondered  if  after  all  there 
had  not  been  something  sinister  about  this  german  woman's  life  in 
Paris. 

Practically  every  afternoon  Gertrude  Stein  went  to  Montmartre,  posed 
and  then  later  wandered  down  the  hill  usually  walking  across  Paris  to 
the  rue  de  Flcurus.  She  then  formed  the  habit  which  has  never  left  her 
of  walking  around  Paris,  now  accompanied  by  the  dog,  in  those  days 
alone.  And  Saturday  evenings  the  Picassos  walked  home  with  her  and 
dined  and  then  there  was  Saturday  evening. 

During  these  long  poses  and  these  long  walks  Gertrude  Stein  medi- 
tated and  made  sentences.  She  was  then  in  the  middle  of  her  negro  story 
Melanctha  Herbert,  the  second  story  of  Three  Lives  and  the  poignant 
incidents  that  she  wove  into  the  life  of  Melanctha  were  often  these  she 
noticed  in  walking  down  the  hill  from  the  rue  Ravignan. 

It  was  at  that  time  that  the  hungarians  began  their  pilgrimages  to 
the  rue  de  Fleurus.  There  were  strange  groups  of  americans  then, 
Picasso  unaccustomed  to  the  vipginal  quality  of  these  young  men  and 


42  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

women  used  to  say  of  them,  ils  sont  pas  des  hommes,  ils  sont  pas  des 
femmes,  ils  sont  des  americains.  They  are  not  men,  they  are  not  women, 
they  are  americans.  Once  there  was  a  Bryn  Mawr  woman  there,  wife  of 
a  well  known  portrait  painter,  who  was  very  tall  and  beautiful  and  hav- 
ing once  fallen  on  her  head  had  a  strange  vacant  expression.  Her,  he 
approved  of,  and  used  to  call  the  Empress.  There  was  a  type  of  amer- 
ican  art  student,  male,  that  used  very  much  to  afflict  him,  he  used  to  say 
no  it  is  not  he  who  will  make  the  future  glory  of  America.  He  had  a 
characteristic  reaction  when  he  saw  the  first  photograph  of  a  sky-scraper. 
Good  God,  he  said,  imagine  the  pangs  of  jealousy  a  lover  would  have 
while  his  beloved  came  up  all  those  flights  of  stairs  to  his  top  story  studio. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  a  Maurice  Denis,  a  Toulouse-Lautrec  and  many 
enormous  Picassos  were  added  to  the  collectio'n.  It  was  at  this  time  also 
that  the  acquaintance  and  friendship  with  the  Vallotons  began. 

Vollard  once  said  when  he  was  asked  about  a  certain  painter's  picture, 
oh  $a  c'est  un  Cezanne  pour  les  pauvres,  that  is  a  Cezanne  for  the  poor 
collector.  Well  Valloton  was  a  Manet  for  the  impecunious.  His  big  nude 
had  all  the  hardness,  the  stillness  and  none  of  the  quality  of  the  Olympe 
of  Manet  and  his  portraits  had  the  aridity  but  none  of  the  elegance  of 
David.  And  further  he  had  the  misfortune  of  having  married  the  sister 
of  an  important  picture-dealer.  He  was  very  happy  with  his  wife  and 
she  was  a  very  charming  woman  but  then  there  were  the  weekly  family 
reunions,  and  there  was  also  the  wealth  of  his  wife  and  the  violence  of 
his  step-sons.  He  was  a  gentle  soul,  Valloton,  with  a  keen  wit  and  a 
great  deal  of  ambition  but  a  feeling  of  impotence,  the  result  of  being  the 
brother-in-law  of  picture  dealers.  However  for  a  time  his  pictures  were 
very  interesting.  He  asked  Gertrude  Stein  to  pose  for  him.  She  did  the 
following  year.  She  had  come  to  like  posing,  the  long  still  hours  followed 
by  a  long  dark  walk  intensified  the  concentration  with  which  she  was 
creating  her  sentences.  The  sentences  of  which  Marcel  Brion,  the  french 
critic  has  written,  by  exactitude,  austerity,  absence  of  variety  in  light  and 
shade,  by  refusal  of  the  use  of  the  subconscious  Gertrude  Stein  achieves 
a  symmetry  which  has  a  close  analogy  to  the  symmetry  of  the  musical 
fugue  of  Bach. 

She  often  described  the  strange  sensation  she  had  as  a  result  of  the 
way  in  which  Valloton  painted.  He  was  not  at  that  time  a  young  man 
as  painters  go,  he  had  already  had  considerable  recognition  as  a  painter 
in  the  Paris  exposition  of  1900.  When  he  painted  a  portrait  he  made  a 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PAFHS  43 

crayon  sketch  and  then  began  painting  at  the  top  of  the  canvas  straight 
across.  Gertrude  Stein  said  it  was  like  pulling  down  a  curtain  as  slowly 
moving  as  one  of  his  swiss  glaciers.  Slowly  he  pulled  the  curtain  down 
and  by  the  time  he  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  canvas,  there  you  were. 
The  whole  operation  took  about  two  weeks  and  then  he  gave  the  canvas 
to  you.  First  however  he  exhibited  it  in  the  autumn  salon  and  it  had  con- 
siderable notice  and  everybody  was  pleased. 

Everybody  went  to  the  Cirque  Medrano  once  a  week,  at  least,  and 
usually  everybody  went  on  the  same  evening.  There  the  clowns  had 
commenced  dressing  up  in  misfit  clothes  instead  of  the  old  classic  cos- 
tume and  these  clothes  later  so  well  known  on  Charlie  Chaplin  were  the 
delight  of  Picasso  and  all  his  friends  in  Montmartre.  There  also  were 
the  english  jockeys  and  their  costumes  made  the  mode  that  all  Mont- 
martre followed.  Not  very  long  ago  somebody  was  talking  about  how 
well  the  young  painters  of  to-day  dressed  and  what  a  pity  it  was  that 
they  spent  money  in  that  way.  Picasso  laughed.  I  am  quite  certain,  he 
said,  they  pay  less  for  the  fashionable  complet,  their  suits  of  clothes, 
than  we  did  for  our  rough  and  common  ones.  You  have  no  idea  how 
hard  it  was  and  expensive  it  was  in  those  days  to  find  english  tweed  or 
a  french  imitation  that  would  look  rough  and  dirty  enough.  And  it  was 
quite  true  one  way  and  another  the  painters  in  those  days  did  spend  a 
lot  of  money  and  they  spent  all  they  got  hold  of  because  in  those  happy 
days  you  could  owe  money  for  years  for  your  paints  and  canvases  and 
rent  and  restaurant  and  practically  everything  except  coal  and  luxuries. 

The  winter  went  on.  Three  Lives  was  written.  Gertrude  Stein  asked 
her  sister-in-law  to  come  and  read  it.  She  did  and  was  deeply  moved. 
This  pleased  Gertrude  Stein  immensely,  she  did  not  believe  that  any  one 
could  read  anything  she  wrote  and  be  interested.  In  those  days  she  never 
asked  any  one  what  they  thought  of  her  work,  but  were  they  interested 
enough  to  read  it.  Now  she  says  if  they  can  bring  themselves  to  read  it 
they  will  be  interested. 

Her  elder  brother's  wife  has  always  meant  a  great  deal  in  her  life  but 
never  more  than  on  that  afternoon.  And  then  it  had  to  be  typewritten. 
Gertrude  Stein  had  at  that  time  a  wretched  little  portable  typewriter 
which  she  never  used.  She  always  then  and  for  many  years  later  wrote 
on  scraps  of  paper  in  pencil,  copied  it  into  french  school  note-books  in 
ink  and  then  often  copied  it  over  again  in  ink.  It  was  in  connection  with 
these  various  series  of  scraps  of  paper  that  her  elder  brother  once  re- 


44  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

marked,  I  do  not  know  whether  Gertrude  has  more  genius  than  the  rest 
of  you  all,  that  I  know  nothing  about,  but  one  thing  I  have  always 
noticed,  the  rest  of  you  paint  and  write  and  are  not  satisfied  and  throw 
it  away  or  tear  it  up,  she  does  not  say  whether  she  is  satisfied  or  not,  she 
copies  it  very  often  but  she  never  throws  away  any  piece  of  paper  upon 
which  she  has  written. 

Gertrude  Stein  tried  to  copy  Three  Lives  on  the  typewriter  but  it  was 
no  use,  it  made  her  nervous,  so  Etta  Cone  came  to  the  rescue.  The  Miss 
Etta  Cones  as  Pablo  Picasso  used  to  call  her  and  her  sister.  Etta  Cone 
was  a  Baltimore  connection  of  Gertrude  Stein's  and  she  was  spending  a 
winter  in  Paris.  She  was  rather  lonesome  and  she  was  rather  interested. 

Etta  Cone  found  the  Picassos  appalling  but  romantic.  She  was  taken 
there  by  Gertrude  Stein  whenever  the  Picasso  finances  got  beyond  every- 
body and  was  made  to  buy  a  hundred  francs'  worth  of  drawings.  After 
all  a  hundred  francs  in  those  days  was  twenty  dollars.  She  was  quite  will- 
ing to  indulge  in  this  romantic  charity.  Needless  to  say  these  drawings 
became  in  very  much  later  years  the  nucleus  of  her  collection. 

Etta  Cone  offered  tp  typewrite  Three  Lives  and  she  began.  Baltimore 
is  famous  for  the  delicate  sensibilities  and  conscientiousness  of  its  inhabit- 
ants. It  suddenly  occurred  to  Gertrude  Stein  that  she  had  not  told  Etta 
Cone  to  read  the  manuscript  before  beginning  to  typewrite  it.  She  went 
to  see  her  and  there  indeed  was  Etta  Cone  faithfully  copying  the  manu- 
script letter  by  letter  so  that  she  might  not  by  any  indiscretion  become 
conscious  of  the  meaning.  Permission  to  read  the  text  having  been  given 
the  typewriting  went  on. 

Spring  was  coming  and  the  sittings  were  coming  to  an  end.  All  of  a 
sudden  one  day  Picasso  painted  out  the  whole  head.  I  can't  see  you  any 
longer  when  I  look,  he  said  irritably.  And  so  the  picture  was  left  like 
that. 

Nobody  remembers  being  particularly  disappointed  or  particularly  an- 
noyed at  this  ending  to  the  long  series  of  posings.  There  was  the  spring 
independent  and  then  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  were  going,  to 
Italy  as  was  at  that  time  their  habit.  Pablo  and  Fernande  were  going  to 
Spain,  she  for  the  first  time,  and  she  had  to  buy  a  dress  and  a  hat  and 
perfumes  and  a  cooking  stove.  All  french  women  in  those  days  when 
they  went  from  one  country  to  another  took  along  a  french  oil  stove  to 
cook  on.  Perhaps  they  still  do.  No  matter  where  they  were  going  this 
had  to  be  taken  with  them.  They  always  paid  a  great  deal  of  excess  bag- 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PARIS  45 

gage,  all  french  women  who  went  travelling.  And  the  Matisses  were 
back  and  they  had  to  meet  the  Picassos  and  to  be  enthusiastic  about  each 
other,  but  not  to  like  each  other  very  well.  And  in  their  wake,  Derain 
met  Picasso  and  with  him  came  Braque. 

It  may  seem  very  strange  to  every  one  nowadays  that  before  this  time 
Matisse  had  never  heard  of  Picasso  and  Picasso  had  never  met  Matisse. 
But  at  that  time  every  little  crowd  lived  its  own  life  and  knew  practically 
nothing  of  any  other  crowd.  Matisse  on  the  Quai  Saint-Michel  and  in 
the  independant  did  not  know  anything  of  Picasso  and  Montmartre  and 
Sagot.  They  all,  it  is  true,  had  been  in  the  very  early  stages  bought  one 
after  the  other  by  Mademoiselle  Weill,  the  bric-a-brac  shop  in  Mont- 
martre, but  as  she  bought  everybody's  pictures,  pictures  brought  by  any 
one,  not  necessarily  by  the  painter,  it  was  not  very  likely  that  any  painter 
would,  except  by  some  rare  chance,  see  there  the  paintings  of  any  other 
painter.  They  were  however  all  very  grateful  to  her  in  later  years  because 
after  all  practically  everybody  who  later  became  famous  had  sold  their 
first  little  picture  to  her. 

As  I  was  saying  the  sittings  were  over,  the  vernissage  of  the  inde- 
pendent was  over  and  everybody  went  away. 

It  had  been  a  fruitful  winter.  In  the  long  struggle  with  the  portrait  of 
Gertrude  Stein,  Picasso  passed  from  the  Harlequin,  the  charming  early 
Italian  period  to  the  intensive  struggle  which  was  to  end  in  cubism. 
Gertrude  Stein  had  written  the  story  of  Melanctha  the  negress,  the  sec- 
ond story  of  Three  Lives  which  was  the  first  definite  step  away  from 
the  nineteenth  century  and  into  the  twentieth  century  in  literature. 
Matisse  had  painted  the  Bonheur  de  Vivre  and  had  created  the  new 
school  of  colour  which  was  soon  to  leave  its  mark  on  everything.  And 
everybody  went  away.  That  summer  the  Matisses  came  to  Italy.  Matisse 
did  not  care  about  it  very  much,  he  preferred  France  and  Morocco  but 
Madame  Matisse  was  deeply  touched.  It  was  a  girlish  dream  fulfilled. 
She  said,  I  say  to  myself  all  the  time,  I  am  in  Italy.  And  I  say  it  to  Henri 
all  the  time  and  he  is  very  sweet  about  it,  but  he  says,  what  of  it. 

The  Picassos  were  in  Spain  and  Fernande  wrote  long  letters  describ- 
ing Spain  and  the  Spaniards  and  earthquakes. 

In  Florence  except  for  the  short  visit  of  the  Matisses  and  a  short  visit 
from  Alfy  Maurer  the  summer  life  was  in  no  way  related  to  the  Paris 
life. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  rented  for  the  summer  a  villa  on  top 


46  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

of  the  hill  at  Fiesole  near  Florence,  and  there  they  spent  their  summers 
for  several  years.  The  year  I  came  to  Paris  a  friend  and  myself  took  this 
villa,  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  having  taken  a  larger  one  on  the 
other  side  of  Fiesole,  having  been  joined  that  year  by  their  elder  brother, 
his  wife  and  child.  The  small  one,  the  Casa  Ricci,  was  very  delightful. 
It  had  been  made  livable  by  a  Scotch  woman  who  born  Presbyterian  be- 
came an  ardent  Catholic  and  took  her  old  Presbyterian  mother  from  one 
convent  to  another.  Finally  they  came  to  rest  in  Casa  Ricci  and  there 
she  made  for  herself  a  chapel  and  there  her  mother  died.  She  then  aban- 
doned this  for  a  lager  villa  which  she  turned  into  a  retreat  for  retired 
priests  and  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  rented  the  Casa  Ricci  from 
her.  Gertrude  Stein  delighted  in  her  landlady  who  looked  exactly  like 
a  lady-in-waiting  to  Mary  Stuart  and  with  all  her  trailing  black  robes 
genuflected  before  every  Catholic  symbol  and  would  then  climb  up  a 
precipitous  ladder  and  open  a  little  window  in  the  roof  to  look  at  the 
stars.  A  strange  mingling  of  Catholic  and  Protestant  exaltation. 

Helene  the  french  servant  never  came  down  to  Fiesole.  She  had  by 
that  time  married.  She  cooked  for  her  husband  during  the  summer  and 
mended  the  stockings  of  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  by  putting  new 
feet  into  them.  She  also  made  jam.  In  Italy  there  was  Maddalena  quite 
as  important  in  Italy  as  Helene  in  Paris,  but  I  doubt  if  with  as  much 
appreciation  for  notabilities.  Italy  is  too  accustomed  to  the  famous  and 
the  children  of  the  famous.  It  was  Edwin  Dodge  who  apropos  of  these 
said,  the  lives  of  great  men  oft  remind  us  we  should  leave  no  sons  be- 
hind us. 

Gertrude  Stein  adored  heat  and  sunshine  although  she  always  says 
that  Paris  winter  is  an  ideal  climate.  In  those  days  it  was  always  at  noon 
that  she  preferred  to  walk.  I,  who  have  and  had  no  fondness  for  a  sum- 
mer sun,  often  accompanied  her.  Sometimes  later  in  Spain  I  sat  under 
a  tree  and  wept  but  she  in  the  sun  was  indefatigable.  She  could  even  lie 
in  the  sun  and  look  straight  up  into  a  summer  noon  sun,  she  said  it 
rested  her  eyes  and  head. 

There  were  amusing  people  in  Florence.  There  were  the  Berensons 
and  at  that  time  with  them  Gladys  Deacon,  a  well  known  international 
beauty,  but  after  a  winter  of  Montmartre  Gertrude  Stein  found  her  too 
easily  shocked  to  be  interesting.  Then  there  were  the  first  russians,  von 
Heiroth  and  his  wife,  she  who  afterwards  had  four  husbands  and  once 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PARIS  47 

pleasantly  remarked  that  she  had  always  been  good  friends  with  all  her 
husbands.  He  was  foolish  but  attractive  and  told  the  usual  russian  stories. 
Then  there  were  the  Thorolds  and  a  great  many  others.  And  most  im- 
portant there  was  a  most  excellent  english  lending  library  with  all  sorts 
of  strange  biographies  which  were  to  Gertrude  Stein  a  source  of  endless 
pleasure.  She  once  told  me  that  when  she  was  young  she  had  read  so 
much,  read  from  the  Elizabethans  to  the  moderns,  that  she  was  terribly 
uneasy  lest  some  day  she  would  be  without  anything  to  read.  For  years 
this  fear  haunted  her  but  in  one  way  and  another  although  she  always 
reads  and  reads  she  seems  always  to  find  more  to  read.  Her  eldest  brother 
used  to  complain  that  although  he  brought  up  from  Florence  every  day 
as  many  books  as  he  could  carry,  there  always  were  just  as  many  to  take 
back. 

It  was  during  this  summer  that  Gertrude  Stein  began  her  great  book, 
The  Making  of  Americans. 

It  began  with  an  old  daily  theme  that  she  had  written  when  at  Rad- 
cliffe, 

"Once  an  angry  man  dragged  his  father  along  the  ground  through 
his  own  orchard.  tStop!'  cried  the  groaning  old  man  at  last.  'Stop!  I  did 
not  drag  my  father  beyond  this  tree.' 

"It  is  hard  living  down  the  tempers  we  are  born  with.  We  all  begin 
well.  For  in  our  youth  there  is  nothing  we  are  more  intolerant  of  than 
our  own  sins  writ  large  in  others  and  we  fight  them  fiercely  in  ourselves; 
but  we  grow  old  and  we  see  that  these  our  sins  are  of  all  sins  the  really 
harmless  ones  to  own,  nay  that  they  give  a  charm  to  any  character,  and 
so  our  struggle  with  them  dies  away."  And  it  was  to  be  the  history  of  a 
family.  It  was  a  history  of  a  family  but  by  the  time  I  came  to  Paris  it 
was  getting  to  be  a  history  of  all  human  beings,  all  who  ever  were  or  are 
or  could  be  living. 

Gertrude  Stein  in  all  her  life  has  never  been  as  pleased  with  anything 
as  she  is  with  the  translation  that  Bernard  Fay  and  Madame  Seilliere  are 
making  of  this  book  now.  She  has  just  been  going  over  it  with  Bernard 
Fay  and  as  she  says,  it  is  wonderful  in  english  and  it  is  even  as  wonder- 
ful in  french.  Elliot  Paul,  when  editor  of  transition  once  said  that  he 
was  certain  that  Gertrude  Stein  could  be  a  best-seller  in  France.  It  seems 
very  likely  that  his  prediction  is  to  be  fulfilled. 

But  to  return  to  those  old  days  in  the  Casa  Ricci  and  the  first  begin- 


48  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

nings  of  those  long  sentences  which  were  to  change  the  literary  ideas  of 
a  great  many  people. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  working  tremendously  over  the  beginning  of  The 
Making  of  Americans  and  came  back  to  Paris  under  the  spell  of  the 
thing  she  was  doing.  It  was  at  this  time  that  working  every  night  she 
often  was  caught  by  the  dawn  coming  while  she  was  working.  She  came 
back  to  a  Paris  fairly  full  of  excitement.  In  the  first  place  she  came  back 
to  her  finished  portrait.  The  day  he  returned  from  Spain  Picasso  sat 
down  and  out  of  his  head  painted  the  head  in  without  having  seen  Ger- 
trude Stein  again.  And  when  she  saw  it  he  and  she  were  content.  It  is 
very  strange  but  neither  can  remember  at  all  what  the  head  looked  like 
when  he  painted  it  out.  There  is  another  charming  story  of  the  portrait. 

Only  a  few  years  ago  when  Gertrude  Stein  had  had  her  hair  cut  short, 
she  had  always  up  toi  that  time  worn  it  as  a  crown  on  top  of  her  head 
as  Picasso  has  painted  it,  when  she  had  had  her  hair  cut,  a  day  or  so 
later  she  happened  to  come  into  a  room  and  Picasso  was  several  rooms 
away.  She  had  a  hat  on  but  he  caught  sight  of  her  through  two  door- 
ways and  approaching  her  quickly  called  out,  Gertrude,  what  is  it,  what 
is  it.  What  is  what,  Pablo,  she  said.  Let  me  see,  he  said.  She  let  him  see. 
And  my  portrait,  said  he  sternly.  Then  his  face  softening  he  added,  mais, 
quand  meme  tout  y  est,  all  the  same  it  is  all  there. 

Matisse  was  back  and  there  was  excitement  in  the  air.  Derain,  and 
Braque  with  him,  had  gone  Montmartre.  Braque  was  a  young  painter 
who  had  known  Marie  Laurencin  when  they  were  both  art  students,  and 
they  had  then  painted  each  other's  portraits.  After  that  Braque  had  done 
rather  geographical  pictures,  rounded  hills  and  very  much  under  the 
colour  influence  of  Matisse's  independent  painting.  He  had  come  to 
know  Derain,  I  am  not  sure  but  that  they  had  known  each  other  while 
doing  their  military  service,  and  now  they  knew  Picasso.  It  was  an  excit- 
ing moment. 

They  began  to  spend  their  days  up  there  and  they  all  always  ate  to- 
gether at  a  little  restaurant  opposite,  and  Picasso  was  more  than  ever  as 
Gertrude  Stein  said  the  little  bull-fighter  followed  by  his  squadron  of 
four,  or  as  later  in  her  portrait  of  him,  she  called  him,  Napoleon  followed 
by  his  four  enormous  grenadiers.  Derain  and  Braque  were  great  big 
men,  so  was  Guillaume  a  heavy  set  man  and  Salmon  was  not  small. 
Picasso  was  every  inch  a  chief. 

This  brings  the  story  to  Salmon  and  Guillaume  Apollinaire,  although 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN  PARIS  49 

Gertrude  Stein  had  known  these  two  and  Marie  Laurencin  a  consider- 
able time  before  all  this  was  happening. 

Salmon  and  Guillaume  Apollinaire  both  lived  in  Montmartre  in  these 
days.  Salmon  was  very  lithe  and  alive  but  Gertrude  Stein  never  found 
him  particularly  interesting.  She  liked  him.  Guillaume  Apollinaire  on 
the  contrary  was  very  wonderful.  There  was  just  about  that  time,  that 
is  about  the  time  when  Gertrude  Stein  first  knew  Apollinaire,  the  ex- 
citement of  a  duel  that  he  was  to  fight  with  another  writer.  Fernande 
and  Pablo  told  about  it  with  so  much  excitement  and  so  much  laughter 
and  so  much  Montmartre  slang,  this  was  in  the  early  days  of  their  ac- 
quaintance, that  she  was  always  a  little  vague  about  just  what  did  hap- 
pen. But  the  gist  of  the  matter  was  that  Guillaume  challenged  the  other 
man  and  Max  Jacob  was  to  be  the  second  and  witness  for  Guillaume. 
Guillaume  and  his  antagonist  each  sat  in  their  favourite  cafe  all  day  and 
waited  while  their  seconds  went  to  and  fro.  How  it  all  ended  Gertrude 
Stein  does  not  know  except  that  nobody  fought,  but  the  great  excitement 
was  the  bill  each  second  and  witness  brought  to  his  principal.  In  these 
was  itemised  each  time  they  had  a  cup  of  coffee  and  of  course  they  had 
to  have  a  cup  of  coffee  every  time  they  sat  down  at  one  or  other  cafe 
with  one  or  other  principal,  and  again  when  the  two  seconds  sat  with 
each  other.  There  was  also  the  question  under  what  circumstances  were 
they  under  the  absolute  necessity  of  having  a  glass  of  brandy  with  the 
cup  of  coffee.  And  how  often  would  they  have  had  coffee  if  they  had 
not  been  seconds.  All  this  led  to  endless  meetings  and  endless  discussion 
and  endless  additional  items.  It  lasted  for  days,  perhaps  weeks  and 
months  and  whether  anybody  finally  was  paid,  even  the  cafe  keeper, 
nobody  knows.  It  was  notorious  that  Apollinaire  was  parted  with  the 
very  greatest  difficulty  from  even  the  smallest  piece  of  money.  It  was  all 
very  absorbing. 

Apollinaire  was  very  attractive  and  very  interesting.  He  had  a  head 
like  one  of  the  late  roman  emperors.  He  had  a  brother  whom  one  heard 
about  but  never  saw.  He  worked  in  a  bank  and  therefore  he  was  reason- 
ably well  dressed.  When  anybody  in  Montmartre  had  to  go  anywhere 
where  they  had  to  be  conventionally  clothed,  either  to  see  a  relation  or 
attend  to  a  business  matter,  they  always  wore  a  piece  of  a  suit  that  be- 
longed to  the  brother  of  Guillaume. 

Guillaume  was  extraordinarily  brilliant  and  no  matter  what  subject 
was  started,  if  he  knew  anything  about  it  or  not,  he  quickly  saw  the 


50  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

whole  meaning  of  the  thing  and  elaborated  it  by  his  wit  and  fancy 
carrying  it  further  than  anybody  knowing  anything  about  it  could  have 
done,  and  oddly  enough  generally  correctly. 

Once,  several  years  later,  we  were  dining  with  the  Picassos,  and  in  a 
conversation  I  got  the  best  of  Guillaume.  I  was  very  proud,  but,  said 
Eve  (Picasso  was  no  longer  with  Fernande),  Guillaume  was  frightfully 
drunk  or  it  would  not  have  happened.  It  was  only  under  such  circum- 
stances that  anybody  could  successfully  turn  a  phrase  against  Guillaume. 
Poor  Guillaume.  The  last  time  we  saw  him  was  after  he  had  come 
back  to  Paris  from  the  war.  He  had  been  badly  wounded  in  the  head 
and  had  had  a  piece  of  his  skull  removed.  He  looked  very  wonderful 
with  his  bleu  horizon  and  his  bandaged  head.  He  lunched  with  us  and 
we  all  talked  a  long  time  together.  He  was  tired  and  his  heavy  head 
nodded.  He  was  very  serious  almost  solemn.  We  went  away  shortly  after, 
we  were  working  with  the  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded,  and 
never  saw  him  again.  Later  Olga  Picasso,  the  wife  of  Picasso,  told  us 
that  the  night  of  the  armistice  Guillaume  Apollinaire  died,  that  they 
were  with  him  that  whole  evening  and  it  was  warm  and  the  windows 
were  open  and  the  crowd  passing  were  shouting,  a  bas  Guillaume,  down 
with  William  and  as  every  one  always  called  Guillaume  Apollinaire 
Guillaume,  even  in  his  death  agony  it  troubled  him. 

He  had  really  been  heroic.  As  a  foreigner,  his  mother  was  a  pole,  his 
father  possibly  an  italian,  it  was  not  at  all  necessary  that  he  should  volun- 
teer to  fight.  He  was  a  man  of  full  habit,  accustomed  to  a  literary  life 
and  the  delights  of  the  table,  and  in  spite  of  everything  he  volunteered. 
He  went  into  the  artillery  first.  Every  one  advised  this  as  it  was  less  dan- 
•gerous  and  easier  than  the  infantry,  but  after  a  while  he  could  not  bear 
this  half  protection  and  he  changed  into  the  infantry  and  was  wounded 
in  a  charge.  He  was  a  long  time  in  hospital,  recovered  a  little,  it  was  at 
this  time  that  we  saw  him,  and  finally  died  on  the  day  of  the  armistice. 

The  death  of  Guillaume  Apollinaire  at  this  time  made  a  very  serious 
difference  to  all  his  friends  apart  from  their  sorrow  at  his  death.  It  was 
the  moment  just  after  the  war  when  many  things  had  changed  and 
people  naturally  fell  apart.  Guillaume  would  have  been  a  bond  of  union, 
he  always  had  a  quality  of  keeping  people  together,  and  now  that  he 
was  gone  everybody  ceased  to  be  friends.  But  all  that  was  very  much 
later  and  now  to  go  back  again  to  the  beginning  when  Gertrude  Stein 
first  met  Guillaume  and  Marie  Laurencin. 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  IN  PARIS  51 

Everybody  called  Gertrude  Stein  Gertrude,  or  at  most  Mademoiselle 
Gertrude,  everybody  called  Picasso  Pablo  and  Fernande  Fernande  and 
everybody  called  Guillaume  Apollinaire  Guillaume  and  Max  Jacob  Max 
but  everybody  called  Marie  Laurencin  Marie  Laurencin. 

The  first  time  Gertrude  Stein  ever  saw  Marie  Laurencin,  Guillaume 
Apollinaire  brought  her  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus,  not  on  a  Saturday  eve- 
ning, but  another  evening.  She  was  very  interesting.  They  were  an  ex- 
traordinary pair.  Marie  Laurencin  was  terribly  near-sighted  and  of 
course  she  never  wore  eye-glasses,  no  french  woman  and  few  frenchmen 
did  in  those  days.  She  used  a  lorgnette. 

She  looked  at  each  picture  carefully  that  is,  every  picture  on  the  line, 
bringing  her  eye  close  and  moving  over  the  whole  of  it  with  her  lor- 
gnette, an  inch  at  a  time.  The  pictures  out  of  reach  she  ignored.  Finally 
she  remarked,  as  for  myself,  I  prefer  portraits  and  that  is  of  course 
quite  natural,  as  I  myself  am  a  Clouet.  And  it  was  perfectly  true,  she 
was  a  Clouet.  She  had  the  square  thin  build  of  the  mediaeval  french 
women  in  the  french  primitives.  She  spoke  in  a  high  pitched  beautifully 
modulated  voice.  She  sat  down  beside  Gertrude  Stein  on  the  couch  and 
she  recounted  the  story  of  her  life,  told  that  her  mother  who  had  always 
had  it  in  her  nature  to  dislike  men  had  been  for  many  years  the  mistress 
of  an  important  personage,  had  borne  her,  Marie  Laurencin.  I  have 
never,  she  added,  dared  let  her  know  Guillaume  although  of  course  he 
is  so  sweet  that  she  could  not  refuse  to  like  him  but  better  not.  Some 
day  you  will  see  her. 

And  later  on  Gertrude  Stein  saw  the  mother  and  by  that  time  I  was 
in  Paris  and  I  was  taken  along. 

Marie  Laurencin,  leading  her  strange  life  and  making  her  strange 
art,  lived  with  her  mother,  who  was  a  very  quiet,  very  pleasant,  very 
dignified  woman,  as  if  the  two  were  living  in  a  convent.  The  small 
apartment  was  filled  with  needlework  which  the  mother  had  executed 
after  the  designs  of  Marie  Laurencin.  Marie  and  her  mother  acted 
toward  each  other  exactly  as  a  young  nun  with  an  older  one.  It  was  all 
very  strange.  Later  just  before  the  war  the  mother  fell  ill  and  died. 
Then  the  mother  did  see  Guillaume  Apollinaire  and  liked  him. 

After  her  mother's  death  Marie  Laurencin  lost  all  sense  of  stability. 
She  and  Guillaume  no  longer  saw  each  other.  A  relation  that  had  existed 
as  long  as  the  mother  lived  without  the  mother's  knowledge  now  that 
the  mother  was  dead  and  had  seen  and  liked  Guillaume  could  no  longer 


52  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

endure.  Marie  against  the  advice  of  all  her  friends  married  a  german. 
When  her  friends  remonstrated  with  her  she  said,  but  he  is  the  only 
one  who  can  give  me  a  feeling  of  my  mother. 

Six  weeks  after  the  marriage  the  war  came  and  Marie  had  to  leave 
the  country,  having  been  married  to  a  german.  As  she  told  me  later 
when  once  during  the  war  we  met  in  Spain,  naturally  the  officials  could 
make  no  trouble  for  her,  her  passport  made  it  clear  that  no  one  knew 
who  her  father  was  and  they  naturally  were  afraid  because  perhaps  her 
father  might  be  the  president  of  the  french  republic. 

During  these  war  years  Marie  was  very  unhappy.  She  was  intensely 
french  and  she  was  technically  german.  When  you  met  her  she  would 
say,  let  me  present  to  you  my  husband  a  boche,  I  do  not  remember  his 
name.  The  official  french  world  in  Spain  with  whom  she  and  her  hus- 
band occasionally  came  in  contact  made  things  very  unpleasant  for  her, 
constantly  referring  to  Germany  as  her  country.  In  the  meanwhile  Guil- 
laume  with  whom  she  was  in  correspondence  wrote  her  passionately 
patriotic  letters.  It  was  a  miserable  time  for  Marie  Laurencin. 

Finally  Madame  Groult,  the  sister  of  Poiret,  coming  to  Spain,  man- 
aged to  help  Marie  out  of  her  troubles.  She  finally  divorced  her  husband 
and  after  the  armistice  returned  to  Paris,  at  home  once  more  in  the 
world.  It  was  then  that  she  came  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  again,  this  time 
with  Erik  Satie.  They  were  both  Normans  and  so  proud  and  happy 
about  it. 

In  the  early  days  Marie  Laurencin  painted  a  strange  picture,  portraits 
of  Guillaume,  Picasso,  Fernande  and  herself.  Fernande  told  Gertrude 
Stein  about  it.  Gertrude  Stein  bought  it  and  Marie  Laurencin  was  so 
pleased.  It  was  the  first  picture  of  hers  any  one  had  ever  bought. 

It  was  before  Gertrude  Stein  knew  the  rue  Ravignan  that  Guillaume 
Apollinaire  had  his  first  paid  job,  he  edited  a  little  pamphlet  about 
physical  culture.  And  it  was  for  this  that  Picasso  made  his  wonderful 
caricatures,  including  one  of  Guillaume  as  an  exemplar  of  what  physical 
culture  could  do. 

And  now  once  more  to  return  to  the  return  from  all  their  travels  and 
to  Picasso  becoming  the  head  of  a  movement  that  was  later  to  be  known 
as  the  cubists.  Who  called  it  cubist  first  I  do  not  know  but  very  likely 
it  was  Apollinaire.  At  any  rate  he  wrote  the  first  little  pamphlet  about 
them  all  and  illustrated  it  with  their  paintings. 

I  can  so  well  remember  the  first  time  Gertrude  Stein  took  me  to  see 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN   PARIS  53 

Guillaume  Apollinaire.  It  was  a  tiny  bachelor's  apartment  on  the  rue  des 
Martyrs.  The  room  was  crowded  with  a  great  many  small  young  gentle- 
men. Who,  I  asked  Fernande,  are  all  these  little  men.  They  are  poets, 
answered  Fernande.  I  was  overcome.  I  had  never  seen  poets  before,  one 
poet  yes  but  not  poets.  It  was  on  that  night  too  that  Picasso,  just  a  little 
drunk  and  to  Fernande's  great  indignation  persisted  in  sitting  beside  me 
and  finding  for  me  in  a  Spanish  album  of  photographs  the  exact  spot 
where  he  was  born.  I  came  away  with  rather  a  vague  idea  of  its  situation. 

Derain  and  Braque  became  followers  of  Picasso  about  six  months 
after  Picasso  had,  through  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother,  met  Matisse. 
Matisse  had  in  the  meantime  introduced  Picasso  to  negro  sculpture. 

At  that  time  negro  sculpture  had  been  well  known  to  curio  hunters 
but  not  to  artists.  Who  first  recognised  its  potential  value  for  the  modern 
artist  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know.  Perhaps  it  was  Maillol  who  came  from 
the  Perpignan  region  and  knew  Matisse  in  the  south  and  called  his  atten- 
tion to  it.  There  is  a  tradition  that  it  was  Derain.  It  is  also  very  possible 
that  it  was  Matisse  himself  because  for  many  years  there  was  a  curio- 
dealer  in  the  rue  de  Rennes  who  always  had  a  great  many  things  of  this 
kind  in  his  window  and  Matisse  often  went  up  the  rue  de  Rennes  to  go 
to  one  of  the  sketch  classes. 

In  any  case  it  was  Matisse  who  first  was  influenced,  not  so  much  in 
his  painting  but  in  his  sculpture,  by  the  african  statues  and  it  was 
Matisse  who  drew  Picasso's  attention  to  it  just  after  Picasso  had  finished 
painting  Gertrude  Stein's  portrait. 

The  effect  of  this  african  art  upon  Matisse  and  Picasso  was  entirely 
different.  Matisse  through  it  was  affected  more  in  his  imagination  than 
in  his  vision.  Picasso  more  in  his  vision  than  in  his  imagination.  Strangely 
enough  it  is  only  very  much  later  in  his  life  that  this  influence  has 
affected  his  imagination  and  that  may  be  through  its  having  been  re- 
enforced  by  the  Orientalism  of  the  russians  when  he  came  in  contact 
with  that  through  Diaghilev  and  the  russian  ballet. 

In  these  early  days  when  he  created  cubism  the  effect  of  the  african 
art  was  purely  upon  his  vision  and  his  forms,  his  imagination  remained 
purely  Spanish.  The  Spanish  quality  of  ritual  and  abstraction  had  been 
indeed  stimulated  by  his  painting  the  portrait  of  Gertrude  Stein.  She 
had  a  definite  impulse  then  and  always  toward  elemental  abstraction. 
She  was  not  at  any  time  interested  in  african  sculpture.  She  always  says 
that  she  liked  it  well  enough  but  that  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  europeans, 


54  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

that  it  lacks  naivete,  that  it  is  very  ancient,  very  narrow,  very  sophis- 
ticated but  lacks  the  elegance  of  the  Egyptian  sculpture  from  which  it  is 
derived.  She  says  that  as  an  american  she  likes  primitive  things  to  be 
more  savage. 

Matisse  and  Picasso  then  being  introduced  to  each  other  by  Gertrude 
Stein  and  her  brother  became  friends  but  they  were  enemies.  Now  they 
are  neither  friends  nor  enemies.  At  that  time  they  were  both. 

They  exchanged  pictures  as  was  the  habit  in  those  days.  Each  painter 
chose  the  one  of  the  other  one  that  presumably  interested  him  the  most. 
Matisse  and  Picasso  chose  each  one  of  the  other  one  the  picture  that  was 
undoubtedly  the  least  interesting  either  of  them  had  done.  Later  each 
one  used  it  as  an  example,  the  picture  he  had  chosen,  of  the  weaknesses 
of  the  other  one.  Very  evidently  in  the  two  pictures  chosen  the  strong 
qualities  of  each  painter  were  not  much  in  evidence. 

The  feeling  between  the  Picassoites  and  the  Matisseites  became  bitter. 
And  this,  you  see,  brings  me  to  the  independent  where  my  friend  and  I 
sat  without  being  aware  of  it  under  the  two  pictures  which  first  pub- 
licly showed  that  Derain  and  Braque  had  become  Picassoites  and  were 
definitely  not  Matisseites. 

In  the  meantime  naturally  a  great  many  things  had  happened. 

Matisse  showed  in  every  autumn  salon  and  every  independent.  He 
was  beginning  to  have  a  considerable  following.  Picasso,  on  the  con- 
trary, never  in  all  his  wife  has  shown  in  any  salon.  His  pictures  at  that 
time  could  really  only  be  seen  at  27  rue  de  Eleurus.  The  first  time  as  one 
might  say  that  he  had  ever  shown  at  a  public  show  was  when  Derain 
and  Braque,  completely  influenced  by  his  recent  work,  showed  theirs. 
After  that  he  too  had  many  followers. 

Matisse  was  irritated  by  the  growing  friendship  between  Picasso  and 
Gertrude  Stein.  Mademoiselle  Gertrude,  he  explained,  likes  local  colour 
and  theatrical  values.  It  would  be  impossible  for  any  one  of  her  quality 
to  have  a  serious  friendship  with  any  one  like  Picasso.  Matisse  still  came 
frequently  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  but  there  was  no  longer  any  frankness 
of  intercourse  between  them  all.  It  was  about  this  time  that  Gertrude 
Stein  and  her  brother  gave  a  lunch  for  all  the  painters  whose  pictures 
were  on  the  wall.  Of  course  it  did  not  include  the  dead  or  the  old.  It  was 
at  this  lunch  that  as  I  have  already  said  Gertrude  Stein  made  them  all 
happy  and  made  the  lunch  a  success  by  seating  each  painter  facing  his 


GERTRUDE  STEIN,  IN  PARIS  55 

own  picture.  No  one  of  them  noticed  it,  they  were  just  naturally  pleased, 
until  just  as  they  were  all  leaving  Matisse,  standing  up  with  his  back  to 
the  door  and  looking  into  the  room  suddenly  realised  what  had  been 
done. 

Matisse  intimated  that  Gertrude  Stein  had  lost  interest  in  his  work. 
She  answered  him,  there  is  nothing  within  you  that  fights  itself  and 
hitherto  you  have  had  the  instinct  to  produce  antagonism  in  others  which 
stimulated  you  to  attack.  But  now  they  follow. 

That  was  the  end  of  the  conversation  but  a  beginning  of  an  important 
part  of  The  Making  of  Americans.  Upon  this  idea  Gertrude  Stein  based 
some  of  her  most  permanent  distinctions  in  types  of  people. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Matisse  began  his  teaching.  He  now  moved 
from  the  Quai  Saint-Michel,  where  he  had  lived  ever  since  his  marriage, 
to  the  boulevard  des  Invalides.  In  consequence  of  the  separation  of 
church  and  state  which  had  just  taken  place  in  France  the  french  gov- 
ernment had  become  possessed  of  a  great  many  convent  schools  and 
other  church  property.  As  many  of  these  convents  ceased  to  exist,  there 
were  at  that  time  a  great  many  of  their  buildings  empty.  Among  others 
a  very  splendid  one  on  the  boulevard  des  Invalides. 

These  buildings  were  being  rented  at  very  low  prices  because  no  lease 
was  given,  as  the  government  when  it  decided  how  to  use  them  perma- 
nently would  put  the  tenants  out  without  warning.  It  was  therefore  an 
ideal  place  for  artists  as  there  were  gardens  and  big  rooms  and  they 
could  put  up  with  the  inconveniences  of  housekeeping  under  the  cir- 
cumstances. So  the  Matisses  moved  in  and  Matisse  instead  of  a  small 
room  to  work  in  had  an  immense  one  and  the  two  boys  came  home  and 
they  were  all  very  happy.  Then  a  number  of  those  who  had  become  his 
followers  asked  him  if  he  would  teach  them  if  they  organised  a  class  for 
him  in  the  same  building  in  which  he  was  then  living.  He  consented 
and  the  Matisse  atelier  began. 

The  applicants  were  of  all  nationalities  and  Matisse  was  at  first  ap- 
palled at  the  number  and  variety  of  them.  He  told  with  much  amuse- 
ment as  well  as  surprise  that  when  he  asked  a  very  little  woman  in  the 
front  row,  what  in  particular  she  had  in  mind  in  her  painting,  what  she 
was  seeking,  she  replied,  Monsieur  je  cherche  le  neuf.  He  used  to  won- 
der how  they  all  managed  to  learn  french  when  he  knew  none  of 
their  languages.  Some  one  got  hold  of  some  of  these  facts  and  made  fun 


56  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

of  the  school  iij  one  of  the  french  weeklies.  This  hurt  Matisse's  feelings 
frightfully.  The  article  said,  and  where  did  these  people  come  from,  and 
it  was  answered,  from  Massachusetts.  Matisse  was  very  unhappy. 

But  in  spite  of  all  this  and  also  in  spite  of  many  dissensions  the  school 
flourished.  There  were  difficulties.  One  of  the  hungarians  wanted  to 
earn  his  living  posing  for  the  class  and  in  the  intervals  when  some  one 
else  posed  go  on  with  his  painting.  There  were  a  number  of  young 
women  who  protested,  a  nude  model  on  a  model  stand  was  one  thing 
but  to  have  it  turn  into  a  fellow  student  was  another.  A  hungarian  was 
found  eating  the  bread  for  rubbing  out  crayon  drawings  that  the  various 
students  left  on  their  painting  boards  and  this  evidence  of  extreme 
poverty  and  lack  of  hygiene  had  an  awful  effect  upon  the  sensibilities 
of  the  americans.  There  were  quite  a  number  of  americans.  One  of  these 
americans  under  the  plea  of  poverty  was  receiving  his  tuition  for  nothing 
and  then  was  found  to  have  purchased  for  himself  a  tiny  Matisse  and  a 
tiny  Picasso  and  a  tiny  Scurat.  This  was  not  only  unfair,  because  many 
of  the  others  wanted  and  could  not  afford  to  own  a  picture  by  the  master 
and  they  were  paying  their  tuition,  but,  since  he  also  bought  a  Picasso, 
it  was  treason.  And  then  every  once  in  a  while  some  one  said  something 
to  Matisse  in  such  bad  french  that  it  sounded  like  something  very  dif- 
ferent from  what  it  was  and  Matisse  grew  very  angry  and  the  unfortu- 
nate had  to  be  taught  how  to  apologise  properly.  All  the  students  were 
working  under  such  a  state  of  tension  that  explosions  were  frequent. 
One  would  accuse  another  of  undue  influence  with  the  master  and  then 
there  were  long  and  complicated  scenes  in  which  usually  some  one  had 
to  apologise.  It  was  all  very  difficult  since  they  themselves  organised 
themselves. 

Gertrude  Stein  enjoyed  all  these  complications  immensely.  Matisse 
was  a  good  gossip  and  so  was  she  and  at  this  time  they  delighted  in  tell- 
ing tales  to  each  other. 

She  began  at  that  time  always  calling  Matisse  the  C.M.  or  cher  maitre. 
She  told  him  the  favourite  Western  story,  pray  gentlemen,  let  there  be 
no  bloodshed.  Matisse  came  not  unfrequently  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus.  It 
was  indeed  at  this  time  that  Helene  prepared  him  the  fried  eggs  instead 
of  an  omelet. 

Three  Lives  had  been  typewritten  and  now  the  next  thing  was  to 
show  it  to  a  publisher.  Some  one  gave  Gertrude  Stein  the  name  of  an 
agent  in  New  York  and  she  tried  that.  Nothing  came  of  it.  Then  she 


GERTRUDE  STEIN   IN  PARIS  57 

tried  publishers  directly.  The  only  one  at  all  interested  was  Bobbs-Merrill 
and  they  said  they  could  not  undertake  it.  This  attempt  to  find  a  pub- 
lisher lasted  some  time  and  then  without  being  really  discouraged  she 
decided  to  have  it  printed.  It  was  not  an  unnatural  thought  as  people  in 
Paris  often  did  this.  Some  one  told  her  about  the  Grafton  Press  in  New 
York,  a  respectable  firm  that  printed  special  historical  things  that  people 
wanted  to  have  printed.  The  arrangements  were  concluded,  Three  Lives 
was  to  be  printed  and  the  proofs  to  be  sent. 

One  day  some  one  knocked  at  the  door  and  a  very  nice  very  american 
young  man  asked  if  he  might  speak  to  Miss  Stein.  She  said,  yes  come  in. 
He  said,  I  have  come  at  the  request  of  the  Grafton  Press.  Yes,  she  said. 
You  see,  he  said  slightly  hesitant,  the  director  of  the  Grafton  Press  is 
under  the  impression  that  perhaps  your  knowledge  of  english.  But  I 
am  an  american,  said  Gertrude  Stein  indignantly.  Yes  yes  I  understand 
that  perfectly  now,  he  said,  but  perhaps  you  have  not  had  much  experi- 
ence in  writing.  I  suppose,  said  she  laughing,  you  were  under  the  im- 
pression that  I  was  imperfectly  educated.  He  blushed,  why  no,  he  said, 
but  you  might  not  have  had  much  experience  in  writing.  Oh  yes,  she 
said,  oh  yes.  Well  it's  alright.  I  will  write  to  the  director  and  you  might 
as  well  tell  him  also  that  everything  that  is  written  in  the  manuscript  is 
written  with  the  intention  of  its  being  so  written  and  all  he  has  to  do  is  to 
print  it  and  I  will  take  the  responsibility.  The  young  man  bowed  himself 
out. 

Later  when  the  book  was  noticed  by  interested  writers  and  newspaper 
men  the  director  of  the  Grafton  Press  wrote  Gertrude  Stein  a  very  simple 
letter  in  which  he  admitted  he  had  been  surprised  at  the  notice  the  book 
had  received  but  wished  to  add  that  now  that  he  had  seen  the  result  he 
wished  to  say  that  he  was  very  pleased  that  his  firm  had  printed  the  book. 
But  this  last  was  after  I  came  to  Paris. 


4     Gertrude  Stein  Before  She  Came  to  Paris 


Once  more  I  have  come  to  Paris  and  now  I  am  one  of  the  habitues  of 
the  rue  de  Fleurus.  Gertrude  Stein  was  writing  The  Making  of  Ameri- 
cans and  she  had  just  commenced  correcting  the  proofs  of  Three  Lives. 
I  helped  her  correct  them. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  born  in  Allegheny,  Pennsylvania.  As  I  am  an 
ardent  californian  and  as  she  spent  her  youth  there  I  have  often  begged 
her  to  be  born  in  California  but  she  has  always  remained  firmly  born  in 
Allegheny,  Pennsylvania.  She  left  it  when  she  was  six  months  old  and 
has  never  seen  it  again  and  now  it  no  longer  exists  being  all  of  it  Pitts- 
burgh. She  used  however  to  delight  in  being  born  in  Allegheny,  Penn- 
sylvania when  during  the  war,  in  connection  with  war  work,  we  used 
to  have  papers  made  out  and  they  always  immediately  wanted  to  know 
one's  birth-place.  She  used  to  say  if  she  had  been  really  born  in  Cali- 
fornia as  I  wanted  her  to  have  been  she  would  never  have  had  the  pleas- 
ure of  seeing  the  various  french  officials  try  to  write,  Allegheny,  Penn- 
sylvania. 

When  I  first  knew  Gertrude  Stein  in  Paris  I  was  surprised  never  to 
see  a  french  book  on  her  table,  although  there  were  always  plenty  of 
english  ones,  there  were  even  no  french  newspapers.  But  do  you  never 
read  french,  I  as  well  as  many  other  people  asked  her.  No,  she  replied, 
you  see  I  feel  with  my  eyes  and  it  does  not  make  any  difference  to  me 
what  language  I  hear,  I  don't  hear  a  language,  I  hear  tones  of  voice  and 
rhythms,  but  with  my  eyes  I  see  words  and  sentences  and  there  is  for  me 
only  one  language  and  that  is  english.  One  of  the  things  that  I  have  liked 
all  these  years  is  to  be  surrounded  by  people  who  know  no  english.  It 
has  left  me  more  intensely  alone  with  my  eyes  and  my  english.  I  do  not 
know  if  it  would  have  been  possible  to  have  english  be  so  all  in  all  to 
me  otherwise.  And  they  none  of  them  could  read  a  word  I  wrote,  most 
of  them  did  not  even  know  that  I  did  write.  No,  I  like  living  with  so 
very  many  people  and  being  all  alone  with  english  and  myself. 

58 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  59 

One  of  her  chapters  in  The  Making  of  Americans  begins :  I  write  for 
myself  and  strangers. 

She  was  born  in  Allegheny,  Pennsylvania,  of  a  very  respectable  middle 
class  family.  She  always  says  that  she  is  very  grateful  not  to  have  been 
born  of  an  intellectual  family,  she  has  a  horror  of  what  she  calls  intel- 
lectual people.  It  has  always  been  rather  ridiculous  that  she  who  is  good 
friends  with  all  the  world  and  can  know  them  and  they  can  know  her, 
has  always  been  the  admired  of  the  precious.  But  she  always  says  some 
day  they,  anybody,  will  find  out  that  she  is  of  interest  to  them,  she  and 
her  writing.  And  she  always  consoles  herself  that  the  newspapers  are 
always  interested.  They  always  say,  she  says,  that  my  writing  is  appalling 
but  they  always  quote  it  and  what  is  more,  they  quote  it  correctly,  and 
those  they  say  they  admire  they  do  not  quote.  This  at  some  of  her  most 
bitter  moments  has  been  a  consolation.  My  sentences  do  get  under  their 
skin,  only  they  do  not  know  that  they  do,  she  has  often  said. 

She  was  born  in  Allegheny,  Pennsylvania,  in  a  house,  a  twin  house. 
Her  family  lived  in  one  and  her  father's  brother's  family  lived  in  the 
other  one.  These  two  families  are  the  families  described  in  The  Making 
of  Americans.  They  had  lived  in  these  houses  for  about  eight  years 
when  Gertrude  Stein  was  born.  A  year  before  her  birth,  the  two  sisters- 
in-law  who  had  never  gotten  along  any  too  well  were  no  longer  on  speak- 
ing terms. 

Gertrude  Stein's  mother  as  she  describes  her  in  The  Making  of  Ameri- 
cans, a  gentle  pleasant  little  woman  with  a  quick  temper,  flatly  refused 
to  see  her  sister-in-law  again.  I  don't  know  quite  what  had  happened 
but  something.  At  any  rate  the  two  brothers  who  had  been  very  success- 
ful business  partners  broke  up  their  partnership,  the  one  brother  went 
to  New  York  where  he  and  all  his  family  after  him  became  very  rich 
and  the  other  brother,  Gertrude  Stein's  family,  went  to  Europe.  They 
first  went  to  Vienna  and  stayed  there  until  Gertrude  Stein  was  about 
three  years  old.  All  she  remembers  of  this  is  that  her  brother's  tutor  once, 
when  she  was  allowed  to  sit  with  her  brothers  at  their  lessons,  described 
a  tiger's  snarl  and  that  that  pleased  and  terrified  her.  Also  that  in  a  pic- 
ture-book that  one  of  her  brothers  used  to  show  her  there  was  a  story  of 
the  wanderings  of  Ulysses  who  when  sitting  sat  on  bent-wood  dining 
room  chairs.  Also  she  remembers  that  they  used  to  play  in  the  public 
gardens  and  that  often  the  old  Kaiser  Francis  Joseph  used  to  stroll 
through  the  gardens  and  sometimes  a  band  played  the  austrian  national 


60  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

hymn  which  she  liked.  She  believed  for  many  years  that  Kaiser  was  the 
real  name  of  Francis  Joseph  and  she  never  could  come  to  accept  the  name 
as  belonging  to  anybody  else. 

They  lived  in  Vienna  for  three  years,  the  father  having  in  the  mean- 
while gone  back  to  America  on  business  and  then  they  moved  to  Paris. 
Here  Gertrude  Stein  has  more  lively  memories.  She  remembers  a  little 
school  where  she  and  her  elder  sister  stayed  and  where  there  was  a  little 
girl  in  the  corner  of  the  school  yard  and  the  other  little  girls  told  her  not 
to  go  near  her,  she  sscratched.  She  also  remembers  the  bowl  of  soup  with 
french  bread  for  breakfast  and  she  also  remembers  that  they  had  mutton 
and  spinach  for  lunch  and  as  she  was  very  fond  of  spinach  and  not  fond 
of  mutton  she  used  to  trade  mutton  for  spinach  with  the  little  girl  op- 
posite. She  also  remembers  all  of  her  three  older  brothers  coming  to  see 
them  at  the  school  and  coming  on  horse-back.  She  also  remembers  a 
black  cat  jumping  from  the  ceiling  of  their  house  at  Passy  and  scaring 
her  mother  and  some  unknown  person  rescuing  her. 

The  family  remained  in  Paris  a  year  and  then  they  came  back  to 
America.  Gertrude  Stein's  elder  brother  charmingly  describes  the  last 
days  when  he  and  his  mother  went  shopping  and  bought  everything 
that  pleased  their  fancy,  seal  skin  coats  and  caps  and  muffs  for  the  whole 
family  from  the  mother  to  the  small  sister  Gertrude  Stein,  gloves  dozens 
of  gloves,  wonderful  hats,  riding  costumes,  and  finally  ending  up  with 
a  microscope  and  a  whole  set  of  the  famous  french  history  of  zoology. 
Then  they  sailed  for  America. 

This  visit  to  Paris  made  a  very  great  impression  upon  Gertrude  Stein. 
When  in  the  beginning  of  the  war,  she  and  I  having  been  in  England 
and  there  having  been  caught  by  the  outbreak  of  the  war  and  so  not 
returning  until  October,  were  back  in  Paris,  the  first  day  we  went  out 
Gertrude  Stein  said,  it  is  strange,  Paris  is  so  different  but  so  familiar. 
And  then  reflectively,  I  see  what  it  is,  there  is  nobody  here  but  the  french 
(there  were  no  soldiers  or  allies  there  yet),  you  can  see  the  little  children 
in  their  black  aprons,  you  can  see  the  streets  because  there  is  nobody  on 
them,  it  is  just  like  my  memory  of  Paris  when  I  was  three  years  old. 
The  pavements  smell  like  they  used  (horses  had  come  back  into  use), 
the  smell  of  french  streets  and  french  public  gardens  that  I  remember 
so  well. 

They  went  back  to  America  and  in  New  York,  the  New  York  family 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  61 

tried  to  reconcile  Gertrude  Stein's  mother  to  her  sister-in-law  but  she 
was  obdurate. 

This  story  reminds  me  of  Miss  Etta  Cone,  a  distant  connection  of 
Gertrude  Stein,  who  typed  Three  Lives.  When  I  first  met  her  in  Flor- 
ence she  confided  to  me  that  she  could  forgive  but  never  forget.  I  added 
that  as  for  myself  I  could  forget  but  not  forgive.  Gertrude  Stein's  mother 
in  this  case  was  evidently  unable  to  do  either. 

The  family  went  west  to  California  after  a  short  stay  in  Baltimore  at 
the  home  of  her  grandfather,  the  religious  old  man  she  describes  in  The 
Making  of  Americans,  who  lived  in  an  old  house  in  Baltimore  with  a 
large  number  of  those  cheerful  pleasant  little  people,  her  uncles  and  her 
aunts. 

Gertrude  Stein  has  never  ceased  to  be  thankful  to  her  mother  for 
neither  forgetting  or  forgiving.  Imagine,  she  has  said  to  me,  if  my  mother 
had  forgiven  her  sister-in-law  and  my  father  had  gone  into  business  with 
my  uncle  and  we  had  lived  and  been  brought  up  in  New  York,  imagine, 
she  says,  how  horrible.  We  would  have  been  rich  instead  of  being  rea- 
sonably poor  but  imagine  how  horrible  to  have  been  brought  up  in  New 
York. 

I  as  a  californian  can  very  thoroughly  sympathise. 

And  so  they  took  the  train  to  California.  The  only  thing  Gertrude 
Stein  remembers  of  this  trip  was  that  she  and  her  sister  had  beautiful 
big  austrian  red  felt  hats  trimmed  each  with  a  beautiful  ostrich  feather 
and  at  some  stage  of  the  trip  her  sister  leaning  out  of  the  window  had 
her  hat  blown  off.  Her1  father  rang  the  emergency  bell,  stopped  the  train, 
got  the  hat  to  the  awe  and  astonishment  of  the  passengers  and  the  con- 
ductor. The  only  other  thing  she  remembers  is  that  they  had  a  wonder- 
ful hamper  of  food  given  them  by  the  aunts  in  Baltimore  and  that  in  it 
was  a  marvellous  turkey.  And  that  later  as  the  food  in  it  diminished  it 
was  renewed  all  along  the  road  whenever  they  stopped  and  that  that 
was  always  exciting.  And  also  that  somewhere  in  the  desert  they  saw 
some  red  indians  and  that  somewhere  else  in  the  desert  they  were  given 
some  very  funny  tasting  peaches  to  eat. 

When  they  arrived  in  California  they  went  to  an  orange  grove  but 
she  does  not  remember  any  oranges  but  remembers  filling  up  her  father's 
cigar  boxes  with  little  limes  which  were  very  wonderful. 

They  came  by  slow  stages  to  San  Francisco  and  settled  down  in  Oak- 


62  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

land.  She  remembers  there  the  eucalyptus  trees  seeming  to  her  so  tall 
and  thin  and  savage  and  the  animal  life  very  wild.  But  all  this  and  much 
more,  all  the  physical  life  of  these  days,  she  has  described  in  the  life  of 
the  Hersland  family  in  her  Making  of  Americans.  The  important  thing 
to  tell  about  now  is  her  education. 

Her  father  having  taken  his  children  to  Europe  so  that  they  might 
have  the  benefit  of  a  europeari  education  now  insisted  that  they  should 
forget  their  french  and  german  so  that  their  american  english  would 
be  pure.  Gertrude  Stein  had  prattled  in  german  and  then  in  french  but 
she  had  never  read  until  she  read  english.  As  she  says  eyes  to  her  were 
more  important  than  ears  and  it  happened  then  as  always  that  english 
was  her  only  language. 

Her  bookish  life  commenced  at  this  time.  She  read  anything  that  was 
printed  that  came  her  way  and  a  great  deal  came  her  way.  In  the  house 
were  a  few  stray  novels,  a  few  travel  books,  her  mother's  well  bound 
gift  books  Wordsworth  Scott  and  other  poets,  Bunyan's  Pilgrim's  Prog- 
ress a  set  of  Shakespeare  with  notes,  Burns,  Congressional  Records  en- 
cyclopedias etcetera.  She  read  them  all  and  many  times.  She  and  her 
brothers  began  to  acquire  other  books.  There  was  also  the  local  free 
library  and  later  in  San  Francisco  there  were  the  mercantile  and  me- 
chanics libraries  with  their  excellent  sets  of  eighteenth  century  and  nine- 
teenth century  authors.  From  her  eighth  year  when  she  absorbed  Shake- 
speare to  her  fifteenth  year  when  she  read  Clarissa  Harlowe,  Fielding, 
Smollett  etcetera  and  used  to  worry  lest  in  a  few  years  more  she  would 
have  read  everything  and  there  would  be  nothing  unread  to  read,  she 
lived  continuously  with  the  english  language.  She  read  a  tremendous 
amount  of  history,  she  often  laughs  and  says  she  is  one  of  the  few  people 
of  her  generation  that  has  read  every  line  of  Carlyle's  Frederick  the 
Great  and  Lecky's  Constitutional  History  of  England  besides  Charles 
Grandison  and  Wordsworth's  longer  poems.  In  fact  she  was  as  she  still 
is  always  reading.  She  reads  anything  and  everything  and  even  now 
hates  to  be  disturbed  and  above  all  however  often  she  has  read  a  book 
and  however  foolish  the  book  may  be  no  one  must  make  fun  of  it  or 
tell  her  how  it  goes  on.  It  is  still  as  it  always  was  real  to  her. 

The  theatre  she  has  always  cared  for  less.  She  says  it  goes  too  fast,  the 
mixture  of  eye  and  ear  bothers  her  and  her  emotion  never  keeps  pace. 
Music  she  only  cared  for  during  her  adolescence.  She  finds  it  difficult 
to  listen  to  it,  it  does  not  hold  her  attention.  All  of  which  of  course  may 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  63 

seem  strange  because  it  has  been  so  often  said  that  the  appeal  of  her  work 
is  to  the  ear  and  to  the  subconscious.  Actually  it  is  her  eyes  and  mind 
that  are  active  and  important  and  concerned  in  choosing. 

Life  in  California  came  to  its  end  when  Gertrude  Stein  was  about 
seventeen  years  old.  The  last  few  years  had  been  lonesome  ones  and  had 
been  passed  in  an  agony  of  adolescence.  After  the  death  of  first  her 
mother  and  then  her  father  she  and  her  sister  and  one  brother  left  Cali- 
fornia for  the  East.  They  came  to  Baltimore  and  stayed  with  her  mother's 
people.  There  she  began  to  lose  her  lonesomeness.  She  has  often  de- 
scribed to  me  how  strange  it  was  to  her  coming  from  the  rather  des- 
perate inner  life  that  she  had  been  living  for  the  last  few  years  to  the 
cheerful  life  of  all  her  aunts  and  uncles.  When  later  she  went  to  Rad- 
cliffe  she  described  this  experience  in  the  first  thing  she  ever  wrote. 
Not  quite  the  first  thing  she  ever  wrote.  She  remembers  having  written 
twice  before.  Once  when  she  was  about  eight  and  she  tried  to  write  a 
Shakespearean  drama  in  which  she  got  as  far  as  a  stage  direction,  the 
courtiers  making  witty  remarks.  And  then  as  she  could  not  think  of  any 
witty  remarks  gave  it  up. 

The  only  other  effort  she  can  remember  must  have  been  at  about  the 
same  age.  They  asked  the  children  in  the  public  schools  to  write  a  de- 
scription. Her  recollection  is  that  she  described  a  sunset  with  the  sun 
going  into  a  cave  of  clouds.  Anyway  it  was  one  of  the  half  dozen  in  the 
school  chosen  to  be  copied  out  on  beautiful  parchment  paper.  After  she 
had  tried  to  copy  it  twice  and  the  writing  became  worse  and  worse  she 
was  reduced  to  letting  some  one  else  copy  it  for  her.  This,  her  teacher 
considered  a  disgrace.  She  does  not  remember  that  she  herself  did. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  her  handwriting  has  always  been  illegible  and  I  am 
very  often  able  to  read  it  when  she  is  not. 

She  has  never  been  able  or  had  any  desire  to  indulge  in  any  of  the  arts. 
She  never  knows  how  a  thing  is  going  to  look  until  it  is  done,  in  arrang- 
ing a  room,  a  garden,  clothes  or  anything  else.  She  cannot  draw  any- 
thing. She  feels  no  relation  between  the  object  and  the  piece  of  paper. 
When  at  the  medical  school,  she  was  supposed  to  draw  anatomical  things 
she  never  found  out  in  sketching  how  a  thing  was  made  concave  or 
convex.  She  remembers  when  she  was  very  small  she  was  to  learn  to 
draw  and  was  sent  to  a  class.  The  children  were  told  to  take  a  cup  and 
saucer  at  home  and  draw  them  and  the  best  drawing  wpuld  have  as  its 
reward  a  stamped  leather  medal  and  the  next  week  the  same  medal 


64  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

would  again  be  given  for  the  best  drawing.  Gertrude  Stein  went  home, 
told  her  brothers  and  they  put  a  pretty  cup  and  saucer  before  her  and 
each  one  explained  to  her  how  to  draw  it.  Nothing  happened.  Finally 
one  of  them  drew  it  for  her.  She  took  it  to  the  class  and  won  the  leather 
medal.  And  on  the  way  home  in  playing  some  game  she  lost  the  leather 
medal.  That  was  the  end  of  the  drawing  class. 

She  says  it  is  a  good  thing  to  have  no  sense  of  how  it  is  done  in  the 
things  that  amuse  you.  You  should  have  one  absorbing  occupation  and 
as  for  the  other  things  in  life  for  full  enjoyment  you  should  only  con- 
template results.  In  this  way  you  are  bound  to  feel  more  about  it  than 
those  who  know  a  little  of  how  it  is  done. 

She  is  passionately  addicted  to  what  the  french  call  metier  and  she 
contends  that  one  can  only  have  one  metier  as  one  can  only  have  one 
language.  Her  metier  is  writing  and  her  language  is  english. 

Observation  and  construction  make  imagination,  that  is  granting  the 
possession  of  imagination,  is  what  she  has  taught  .many  young  writers. 
Once  when  Hemingway  wrote  in  one  of  his  stories  that  Gertrude  Stein 
always  knew  what  was  good  in  a  Cezanne,  she  looked  at  him  and  said, 
Hemingway,  remarks  are  not  literature. 

The  young  often  when  they  have  learnt  all  they  can  learn  accuse  her 
of  an  inordinate  pride.  She  says  yes  of  course.  She  realises  that  in  english 
literature  in  her  time  she  is  the  only  one.  She  has  always  known  it  and 
now  she  says  it. 

She  understands  very  well  the  basis  of  creation  and  therefore  her  ad- 
vice and  criticism  is  invaluable  to  all  her  friends.  How  often  have  I  heard 
Picasso  say  to  her  when  she  has  said  something  about  a  picture  of  his 
and  then  illustrated  by  something  she  was  trying  to  do,  racontez-moi 
cela.  In  other  words  tell  me  about  it.  These  two  even  to-day  have  long 
solitary  conversations.  They  sit  in  two  little  low  chairs  up  in  his  apart- 
ment studio,  knee  to  knee  and  Picasso  says,  expliquez-moi  cela.  And 
they  explain  to  each  other.  They  talk  about  everything,  about  pictures, 
about  dogs,  about  death,  about  unhappiness.  Because  Picasso  is  a 
Spaniard  and  life  is  tragic  and  bitter  and  unhappy.  Gertrude  Stein  often 
comes  down  to  me  and  says,  Pablo  has  been  persuading  me  that  I  am 
as  unhappy  as  he  is.  He  insists  that  I  am  and  with  as  much  cause.  But 
are  you,  I  ask.  Well  I  don't  think  I  look  it,  do  I,  and  she  laughs.  He  says, 
she  says,  that  I  don't  look  it  because  I  have  more  courage,  but  I  don't 
think  I  am,  she  says,  no  I  don't  think  I  am. 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  65 

And  so  Gertrude  Stein  having  been  in  Baltimore  for  a  winter  and 
having  become  more  humanised  and  less  adolescent  and  less  lonesome 
went  to  Radcliffe.  There  she  had  a  very  good  time. 

She  was  one  of -a  group  of  Harvard  men  and  Radcliffe  women  and 
they  all  lived  very  closely  and  very  interestingly  together.  One  of  them, 
a  young  philosopher  and  mathematician  who  was  doing  research  work 
in  psychology  left  a  definite  mark  on  her  life.  She  and  he  together 
worked  out  a  series  of  experiments  in  automatic  writing  under  the  direc- 
tion of  Miinsterberg.  The  result  of  her  own  experiments,  which  Gertrude 
Stein  wrote  down  and  which  was  printed  in  the  Harvard  Psychological 
Review  was  the  first  writing  of  hers  ever  to  be  printed.  It  is  very  inter- 
esting to  read  because  the  method  of  writing  to  be  afterwards  developed 
in  Three  Lives  and  Making  of  Americans  already  shows  itself. 

The  important  person  in  Gertrude  Stein's  Radcliffe  life  was  William 
James.  She  enjoyed  her  life  and  herself.  She  was  the  secretary  of  the 
philosophical  club  and  amused  herself  with  all  sorts  of  people.  She  liked 
making  sport  of  question  asking  and  she  liked  equally  answering  them. 
She  liked  it  all.  But  the  really  lasting  impression  of  her  Radcliffe  life 
came  through  William  James. 

It  is  rather  strange  that  she  was  not  then  at  all  interested  in  the  work 
of  Henry  James  for  whom  she  now  has  a  very  great  admiration  and 
whom  she  considers  quite  definitely  as  her  forerunner,  he  being  the  only 
nineteenth  century  writer  who  being  an  american  felt  the  method  of 
the  twentieth  century.  Gertrude  Stein  always  speaks  of  America  as  being 
now  the  oldest  country  in  the  world  because  by  the  methods  of  the  civil 
war  and  the  commercial  conceptions  that  followed  it  America  created 
the  twentieth  century,  and  since  all  the  other  countries  are  now  either 
living  or  commencing  to  be-  living  a  twentieth  century  of  life,  America 
having  begun  the  creation  of  the  twentieth  century  in  the  sixties  of  the 
nineteenth  century  is  now  the  oldest  country  in  the  world. 
-  In  the  same  way  she  contends  that  Henry  James  was  the  first  person 
in  literature  to  find  the  way  to  the  literary  methods  of  the  twentieth 
century.  But  oddly  enough  in  all  of  her  formative  period  she  did  not 
read  him  and  was  not  interested  in  him.  But  as  she  often  says  one  is 
always  naturally  antagonistic  to  one's  parents  and  sympathetic  to  one's 
grandparents.  The  parents  are  too  close,  they  hamper  you,  one  must  be 
alone.  So  perhaps  that  is  the  reason  why  only  very  lately  Gertrude  Stein 
reads  Henry  James. 


66  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

William  James  delighted  her.  His  personality  and  his  teaching  and 
his  way  of  amusing  himself  with  himself  and  his  students  all  pleased 
her.  Keep  your  mind  open,  he  used  to  say,  and  when  some  one  objected, 
but  Professor  James,  this  that  I  say,  is  true.  Yes,  said  James,  it  is  abjectly 
true. 

Gertrude  Stein  never  had  subconscious  reactions,  nor  was  she  a  suc- 
cessful subject  for  automatic  writing.  One  of  the  students  in  the  psycho- 
logical seminar  of  which  Gertrude  Stein,  although  an  undergraduate 
was  at  William  James'  particular  request  a  member,  was  carrying  on  a 
series  of  experiments  on  suggestions  to  the  subconscious.  When  he  read 
his  paper  upon  the  result  of  his  experiments,  he  began  by  explaining 
that  one  of  the  subjects  gave  absolutely  no  results  and  as  this  much 
lowered  the  average  and  made  the  conclusion  of  his  experiments  false 
he  wished  to  be  allowed  to  cut  this  record  out.  Whose  record  is  it,  said 
James.  Miss  Stein's,  said  the  student.  Ah,  said  James,  if  Miss  Stein  gave 
no  response  I  should  say  that  it  was  as  normal  not  to  give  a  response  as  to 
give  one  and  decidedly  the  result  must  not  be  cut  out. 

It  was  a  very  lovely  spring  day,  Gertrude  Stein  had  been  going  to  the 
opera  every  night  and  going  also  to  the  opera  in  the  afternoon  and  had 
been  otherwise  engrossed  and  it  was  the  period  of  the  final  examinations, 
and  there  was  the  examination  in  William  James'  course.  She  sat  down 
with  the  examination  paper  before  her  and  she  just  could  not.  Dear 
Professor  James,  she  wrote  at  the  top  of  her  paper.  I  am  so  sorry  but 
really  I  do  not  feel  a  bit  like  an  examination  paper  in  philosophy  to-day, 
and  left. 

The  next  day  she  had  a  postal  card  from  William  James  saying,  Dear 
Miss  Stein,  I  understand  perfectly  how  you  feel  I  often  feel  like  that 
myself.  And  underneath  it  he  gave  her  work  the  highest  mark  in  his 
course. 

When  Gertrude  Stein  was  finishing  her  last  year  at  Radcliffe,  Wil- 
liam James  one  day  asked  her  what  she  was  going  to  do.  She  said  she 
had  no  idea.  Well,  he  said,  it  should  be  either  philosophy  or  psychology. 
Now  for  philosophy  you  have  to  have  higher  mathematics  and  I  don't 
gather  that  that  has  ever  interested  you.  Now  for  psychology  you  must 
have  a  medical  education,  a  medical  education  opens  all  doors,  as  Oliver 
Wendell  Holmes  told  me  and  as  I  tell  you.  Gertrude  Stein  had  been  in- 
terested in  both  biology  and  chemistry  and  so  medical  scnool  presented 
no  difficulties. 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  67 

There  were  no  difficulties  except  that  Gertrude  Stein  had  never  passed 
more  than  half  of  her  entrance  examinations  for  Radcliffe,  having  never 
intended  to  take  a  degree.  However  with  considerable  struggle  and 
enough  tutoring  that  was  accomplished  and  Gertrude,  Stein  entered 
Johns  Hopkins  Medical  School. 

Some  years  after  when  Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother  were  just  be- 
ginning knowing  Matisse  and  Picasso,  William  James  came  to  Paris 
and  they  met.  She  went  to  see  him  at  his  hotel.  He  was  enormously  in- 
terested in  what  she  was  doing,  interested  in  her  writing  and  in  the  pic- 
tures she  told  him  about.  He  went  with  her  to  her  house  to  see  them. 
He  looked  and  gasped,  I  told  you,  he  said,  I  always  told  you  that  you 
should  keep  your  mind  open. 

Only  about  two  years  ago  a  very  strange  thing  happened.  Gertrude 
Stein  received  a  letter  from  a  man  in  Boston.  It  was  evident  from  the 
letter  head  that  he  was  one  of  a  firm  of  lawyers.  He  said  in  his  letter  that 
he  had  not  long  ago  in  reading  in  the  Harvard  library  found  that  the 
library  of  William  James  had  been  given  as  a  gift  to  the  Harvard  library. 
Among  these  books  was  the  copy  of  Three  Lives  that  Gertrude  Stein 
had  dedicated  and  sent  to  James.  Also  on  the  margins  of  the  book  were 
notes  that  William  James  had  evidently  made  when  reading  the  book. 
The  man  then  went  on  to  say  that  very  likely  Gertrude  Stein  would  be 
very  interested  in  these  notes  and  he  proposed,  if  she  wished,  to  copy 
them  out  for  her  as  he  had  appropriated  the  book,  in  other  words  taken 
it  and  considered  it  as  his.  We  were  very  puzzled  what  to  do  about  it. 
Finally  a  note  was  written  saying  that  Gertrude  Stein  would  like  to 
have  a  copy  of  William  James'  notes.  In  answer  came  a  manuscript  the 
man  himself  had  written  and  of  which  he  wished  Gertrude  Stein  to  give 
him  an  opinion.  Not  knowing  what  to  do  about  it  all,  Gertrude  Stein 
did  nothing. 

After  having  passed  her  entrance  examinations  she  settled  down  in 
Baltimore  and  went  to  the  medical  school.  She  had  a  servant  named 
Lena  and  it  is  her  story  that  Gertrude  Stein  afterwards  wrote  as  the 
first  story  of  the  Three  Lives. 

The  first  two  years  of  the  medical  school  were  alright.  They  were 
purely  laboratory  work  and  Gertrude  Stein  under  Llewelys  Barker  im- 
mediately betook  herself  to  research  work.  She  began  a  study  of  all  the 
brain  tracts,  the  beginning  of  a  comparative  study.  All  this  was  later 
embodied  in  Llewelys  Barker's  book.  She  delighted  in  Doctor  Mall, 


68  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

professor  of  anatomy,  who  directed  her  work.  She  always  quotes  his 
answer  to  any  student  excusing  him  or  herself  for  anything.  He  would 
look  reflective  and  say,  yes  that  is  just  like  our  cook.  There  is  alv/ays  a 
reason.  She  never  brings  the  food  to  the  table  hot.  In  summer  of  course 
she  can't  because  it  is  too  hot,  in  winter  of  course  she  can't  because  it  is 
too  cold,  yes  there  is  always  a  reason.  Doctor  Mall  believed  in  everybody 
developing  their  own  technique.  He  also  remarked,  nobody  teaches  any- 
body anything,  at  first  every  student's  scalpel  is  dull  and  then  later  every 
student's  scalpel  is  sharp,  and  nobody  has  taught  anybody  anything. 

These  first  two  years  at  the  medical  school  Gertrude  Stein  liked  well 
enough.  She  always  liked  knowing  a  lot  of  people  and  being  mixed  up 
in  a  lot  of  stories  and  she  was  not  awfully  interested  but  she  was  not  too 
bored  with  what  she  was  doing  and  besides  she  had  quantities  of  pleasant 
relatives  in  Baltimore  and  she  liked  it.  The  last  two  years  at  the  medical 
school  she  was  bored,  frankly  openly  bored.  There  was  a  good  deal  of 
intrigue  and  struggle  among  the  students,  that  she  liked,  but  the  prac- 
tice and  theory  of  medicine  did  not  interest  her  at  all.  It  was  fairly  well 
known  among  all  her  teachers  that  she  was  bored,  but  as  her  first  two 
years  of  scientific  work  had  given  her  a  reputation,  everybody  gave  her 
the  necessary  credits  and  the  end  of  her  last  year  was  approaching.  It 
was  then  that  she  had  to  take  her  turn  in  the  delivering  of  babies  and 
it  was  at  that  time  that  she  noticed  the  negroes  and  the  places  that  she 
afterwards  used  in  the  second  of  the  Three  Lives  stories,  Melanctha 
Herbert,  the  story  that  was  the  beginning  of  her  revolutionary  work. 

As  she  always  says  of  herself,  she  has  a  great  deal  of  inertia  and  once 
started  keeps  going  until  she  starts  somewhere  else. 

As  the  graduation  examinations  drew  near  some  of  her  professors 
were  getting  angry.  The  big  men  like  Halstead,  Osier  etcetera  knowing 
her  reputation  for  original  scientific  work  made  the  medical  examina- 
tions merely  a  matter  of  form  and  passed  her.  But  there  were  others  who 
were  not  so  amiable.  Gertrude  Stein  always  laughed,  and  this  was  diffi- 
cult. They  would  ask  her  questions  although  as  she  said  to  her  friends, 
it  was  foolish  of  them  to  ask  her,  when  there  were  so  many  eager  and 
anxious  to  answer.  However  they  did  question  her  from  time  to  time 
and  as  she  said,  what  could  she  do,  she  did  not  know  the  answers  and 
they  did  not  believe  that  she  did  not  know  them,  they  thought  that  she 
did  not  answer  because  she  did  not  consider  the  professors  worth  an- 
swering. It  was  a  difficult  situation,  as  she  said,  it  was  'impossible  to 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  69 

apologise  and  explain  to  them  that  she  was  so  bored  she  could  not  re- 
member the  things  that  of  course  the  dullest  medical  student  could  not 
forget.  One  of  the  professors  said  that  although  all  the  big  men  were 
ready  to  pass  her  he  intended  that  she  should  be  given  a  lesson  and  he 
refused  to  give  her  a  pass  mark  and  so  she  was  not  able  to  take  her  degree. 
There  was  great  excitement  in  the  medical  school.  Her  very  close  friend 
Marion  Walker  pleaded  with  her,  she  said,  but  Gertrude  Gertrude  re- 
member the  cause  of  women,  and  Gertrude  Stein  said,  you  don't  know 
what  it  is  to  be  bored. 

The  professor  who  had  flunked  her  asked  her  to  come  to  see  him.  She 
did.  He  said,  of  course  Miss  Stein  all  you  have  to  do  is  to  take  a  summer 
course  here  and  in  the  fall  naturally  you  will  take  your  degree.  But  not 
at  all,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  you  have  no  idea  how  grateful  I  am  to  you. 
I  have  so  much  inertia  and  so  little  initiative  that  very  possibly  if  you 
had  not  kept  me  from  taking  my  degree  I  would  have,  well,  not  taken 
to  the  practice  of  medicine,  but  at  any  rate  to  pathological  psychology 
and  you  don't  know  how  little  I  like  pathological  psychology,  and  how 
all  medicine  bores  me.  The  professor  was  completely  taken  aback  and 
that  was  the  end  of  the  medical  education  of  Gertrude  Stein. 

She  always  says  she  dislikes  the  abnormal,  it  is  so  obvious.  She  says 
the  normal  is  so  much  more  simply  complicated  and  interesting. 

It  was  only  a  few  years  ago  that  Marion  Walker,  Gertrude  Stein's  old 
friend,  came  to  see  her  at  Bilignin  where  we  spend  the  summer.  She  and 
Gertrude  Stein  had  not  met  since  those  old  days  nor  had  they  corre- 
sponded but  they  were  as  fond  of  each  other  and  disagreed  as  violently 
about  the  cause  of  women  as  they  did  then.  Not,  as  Gertrude  Stein  ek- 
plained  to  Marion  Walker,  that  she  at  all  minds  the  cause  of  women  or 
any  other  cause  but  it  does  not  happen  to  be  her  business. 

During  these  years  at  Radcliflfe  and  Johns  Hopkins  she  often  spent 
the  summers  in  Europe.  The  last  couple  of  years  her  brother  had  been 
settled  in  Florence  and  now  that  everything  medical  was  over  she  joined 
him  there  and  later  they  settled  down  in  London  for  the  winter. 

They  settled  in  lodgings  in  London  and  were  not  uncomfortable. 
They  knew  a  number  of  people  through  the  Berensons,  Bertrand  Rus- 
sell, the  Zangwills,  then  there  was  Willard  (Josiah  Flynt)  who  wrote 
Tramping  With  Tramps,  and  who  knew  all  about  London  pubs,  but 
Gertrude  Stein  was  not  very  much  amused.  She  began  spending  all  her 
days  in  the  British  Museum  reading  the  Elizabethans.  She  returned  to 


70  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

her  early  loveof  Shakespeare  and  the  Elizabethans,  and  became  absorbed 
in  Elizabethan  prose  and  particularly  in  the  prose  of  Greene.  She  had 
little  note-books  full  of  phrases  that  pleased  her  as  they  had  pleased  her 
when  she  was  a  child.  The  rest  of  the  time  she^  wandered  about  the  Lon- 
don streets  and  found  them  infinitely  depressing  and  dismal.  She  never 
really  got  over  this  memory  of  London  and  never  wanted  to  go  back 
there,  but  in  nineteen  hundred  and  twelve  she  went  over  to  see  John 
Lane,  the  publisher  and  then  living  a  very  pleasant  life  and  visiting  very 
gay  and  pleasant  people  she  forgot  the  old  memory  and  became  very 
fond  of  London. 

She  always  said  that  that  first  visit  had  made  London  just  like  Dickens 
and  Dickens  had  always  frightened  her.  As  ^he  says  anything  can 
frighten  her  and  London  when  it  was  like  Dickens  certainly  did. 

There  were  some  compensations,  there  was  the  prose  of  Greene  and  it 
was  at  this  time  that  she  discovered  the  novels  of  Anthony  Trollope,  for 
her  the  greatest  of  the  Victorians.  She  then  got  together  the  complete 
collection  of  his  work  some  of  it  difficult  to  get  and  only  obtainable  in 
Tauchnitz  and  it  is  of  this  collection  that  Robert  Coates  speaks  when  he 
tells  about  Gertrude  Stein  lending  books  to  young  writers.  She  also 
bought  a  quantity  of  eighteen  century  memoirs  among  them  the  Creevy 
papers  and  Walpole  and  it  is  these  that  she  loaned  to  Bravig  Imbs  when 
he  wrote  what  she  believes  to  be  an  admirable  life  of  Chatterton.  She 
reads  books  but  she  is  not  fussy  about  them,  she  cares  about  neither  edi- 
tions nor  make-up  as  long  as  the  print  is  not  too  bad  and  she  is  not  even 
very  much  bothered  about  that.  It  was  at  this  time  too  that,  as  she  says, 
she  ceased  to  be  worried  about  there  being  in  the  future  nothing  to  read, 
she  said  she  felt  that  she  would  always  somehow  be  able  to  find  some- 
thing. 

But  the  dismalness  of  London  and  the  drunken  women  and  children 
and  the  gloom  and  the  lonesomeness  brought  back  all  the  melancholy  of 
her  adolescence  and  one  day  she  said  she  was  leaving  for  America  and 
she  left.  She  stayed  in  America  the  rest  of  the  winter.  In  the  meantime 
her  brother  also  had  left  London  and  gone  to  Paris  and  there  later  sh'e 
joined  him.  She  immediately  began  to  write.  She  wrote  a  short  novel. 

The  funny  thing  about  this  short  novel  is  that  she  completely  forgot 
about  it  for  many  years.  She  remembered  herself  beginning  a  little  later 
writing  the  Three  Lives  but  this  first  piece  of  writing  was  completely 
forgotten,  she  had  never  mentioned  it  to  me,  even  when  I  first  knew 


GERTRUDE  STEIN  BEFORE  SHE  CAME  TO  PARIS  71 

her.  She  must  have  forgotten  about  it  almost  immediately.  This  spring 
just  two  days  before  our  leaving  for  the  country  she  was  looking  for 
some  manuscript  of  The  Making  of  Americans  that  she  wanted  to  show 
Bernard  Fay  and  she  came  across  these  two  carefully  written  volumes 
of  this  completely  forgotten  first  novel.  She  was  very  bashful  and  hesitant 
about  it,  did  not  really  want  to  read  it.  Louis  Bromfield  was  at  the  house 
that  evening  and  she  handed  him  the  manuscript  and  said  to  him,  you 
read  it. 


5     1907-1914 


And  so  life  in  Paris  began  and  as  all  roads  lead  to  Paris,  all  of  us  are 
now  there,  and  I  can  begin  to  tell  what  happened  when  I  was  of  it. 

When  I  first  came  to  Paris  a  friend  and  myself  stayed  in  a  little  hotel 
in  the  boulevard  Saint-Michel,  then  we  took  a  small  apartment  in  the 
rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs  and  then  my  friend  went  back  to  Cali- 
fornia and  I  joined  Gertrude  Stein  in  the  rue  de  Fleurus. 

I  had  been  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  every  Saturday  evening  and  I  was 
there  a  great  deal  beside.  I  helped  Gertrude  Stein  with  the  proofs  of 
Three  Lives  and  then  I  began  to  typewrite  The  Making  of  Americans. 
The  little  badly  made  french  portable  was  not  strong  enough  to  type 
this  big  book  and  so  we  bought  a  large  and  imposing  Smith  Premier 
which  at  first  looked  very  much  out  of  place  in  the  atelier  but  soon  we 
were  all  used  to  it  and  it  remained  until  I  had  an  american  portable,  in 
short  until  after  the  war. 

As  I  said  Fernande  was  the  first  wife  of  a  genius  I  was  to  sit  with. 
The  geniuses  came  and  talked  to  Gertrude  Stein  and  the  wives  sat  with 
me.  How  they  unroll,  an  endless  vista  through  the  years.  I  began  with 
Fernande  and  then  there  were  Madame  Matisse  and  Marcelle  Braque 
and  Josette  Gris  and  Eve  Picasso  and  Bridget  Gibb  and  Marjory  Gibb 
and  Hadley  and  Pauline  Hemingway  and  Mrs.  Sherwood  Anderson 
and  Mrs.  Bravig  Imbs  and  the  Mrs.  Ford  Madox  Ford  and  endless 
others,  geniuses,  near  geniuses  and  might  be  geniuses,  all  having  wives, 
and  I  have  sat  and  talked  with  them  all  all  the  wives  and  later  on,  well 
later  on  too,  I  have  sat  and  talked  with  all.  But  I  began  with  Fernande. 

I  went  too  to  the  Casa  Ricci  in  Fiesole  with  Gertrude  Stein  and  her 
brother.  How  well  I  remember  the  first  summer  I  stayed  with  them.  We 
did  charming  things.  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  took  a  Fiesole  cab,  I  think 
it  was  the  only  one  and  drove  in  this  old  cab  all  the  way  to  Siena.  Ger- 
trude Stein  had  once  walked  it  with  a  friend  but  in  those  hot  italian 
days  I  preferred  a  cab.  It  was  a  charming  trip.  Then  another  time  we 

72 


1907-1914'  73 

went  to  Rome  and  we  brought  back  a  beautiful  black  renaissance  plate. 
Maddalena,  the  old  italian  cook,  came  up  to  Gertrude  Stein's  bedroom 
one  morning  to  bring  the  water  for  her  bath.  Gertrude  Stein  had  the 
hiccoughs.  But  cannot  the  signora  stop  it,  said  Maddalena  anxiously. 
No,  said  Gertrude  Stein  between  hiccoughs.  Maddalena  shaking  her 
head  sadly  went  away.  In  a  minute  there  was  an  awful  crash.  Up  flew 
Maddalena,  oh  signora,  signora,  she  said,  I  was  so  upset  because  the 
signora  had  the  hiccoughs  that  I  broke  the  black  plate  that  the  signora 
so  carefully  brought  from  Rome.  Gertrude  Stein  began  to  swear,  she 
has  a  reprehensible  habit  of  swearing  whenever  anything  unexpected 
happens  and  she  always  tells  me  she  learned  it  in  her  youth  in  California, 
and  as  I  am  a  loyal  californian  I  can  then  say  nothing.  She  swore  and 
the  hiccoughs  ceased.  Maddalena's  face  was  wreathed  in  smiles.  Ah  the 
signorina,  she  said,  she  has  stopped  hiccoughing.  Oh  no  I  did  not  break 
the  beautiful  plate,  I  just  made  the  noise  of  it  and  then  said  I  did  it  to 
make  the  signorina  stop  hiccoughing. 

Gertrude  Stein  is  awfully  patient  over  the  breaking  of  even  her  most 
cherished  objects,  it  is  I,  I  am  sorry  to  say  who  usually  break  them. 
Neither  she  nor  the  servant  nor  the  dog  do,  but  then  the  servant  never 
touches  them,  it  is  I  who  dust  them  and  alas  sometimes  accidentally  break 
them.  I  always  beg  her  to  promise  to  let  me  have  them  mended  by  an  ex- 
pert before  I  tell  her  which  it  is  that  is  broken,  she  always  replies  she  gets 
no  pleasure  out  of  them  if  they  are  mended  but  alright  have  it  mended 
and  it  is  mended  and  it  gets  put  away.  She  loves  objects  that  are  breakable, 
cheap  objects  and  valuable  objects,  a  chicken  out  of  a  grocery  shop  or  a 
'pigeon  out  of  a  fair,  one  just  broke  this  morning,  this  time  it  was  not  I 
who  did  it,  she  loves  them  all  and  she  remembers  them  all  but  she  knows 
that  sooner  or  later  they  will  break  and  she  says  that  like  books  there 
are  always  more  to  find.  However  to  me  this  is  no  consolation.  She  says 
she  likes  what  she  has  and  she  likes  the  adventure  of  a  new  one.  That 
is  what  she  always  says  about  young  painters,  about  anything,  once 
everybody  knows  they  are  good  the  adventure  is  over.  And  adds  Picasso 
with  a  sigh,  even  after  everybody  knows  they  are  good  not  any  more 
people  really  like  them  than  they  did  when  only  the  few  knew  they  were 
good. 

I  did  have  to  take  one  hot  walk  that  summer.  Gertrude  Stein  insisted 
that  no  one  could  go  to  Assisi  except  on  foot.  She  has  three  favourite 
saints,  Saint  Ignatius  Loyola,  Saint  Theresa  of  Avila  and  Saint  Francis. 


74  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

I  alas  have  only  one  favourite  saint,  Saint  Anthony  of  Padua  because  it 
is  he  who  finds  lost  objects  and  as  Gertrude  Stein's  elder  brother  once 
said  of  me,  if  I  were  a  general  I  would  never  lose  a  battle,  I  would  only 
mislay  it.  Saint  Anthony  helps  me  find  it.  I  always  put  a  considerable 
sum  in  his  box  in  every  church  I  visit.  At  first  Gertrude  Stein  objected 
to  this  extravagance  but  now  she  realises  its  necessity  and  if  I  am  not 
with  her  she  remembers  Saint  Anthony  for  me. 

It  was  a  very  hot  italian  day  and  we  started  as  usual  about  noon,  that 
being  Gertrude  Stein's  favourite  walking  hour,  because  it  was  hottest 
and  beside  presumably  Saint  Francis  had  walked  it  then  the  oftenest 
as  he  had  walked  it  at  all  hours.  We  started  from  Perugia  across  the  hot 
valley.  I  gradually  undressed,  in  those  days  one  wore  many  more  clothes 
than  one  does  now,  I  even,  which  was  most  unconventional  in  those 
days,  took  off  my  stockings,  but  even  so  I  dropped  a  few  tears  before 
we  arrived  and  we  did  arrive.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  fond  of  Assisi 
for  two  reasons,  because  of  Saint  Francis  and  the  beauty  of  his  city  and 
because  the  old  women  used  to  lead  instead  of  a  goat  a  little  pig  up  and 
down  the  hills  of  Assisi.  The  little  black  pig  was  always  decorated  with 
a  red  ribbon.  Gertrude  Stein  had  always  liked  little  pigs  and  she  always 
said  that  in  her  old  age  she  expected  to  wander  up  and  down  the  hills 
of  Assisi  with  a  little  black  pig.  She  now  wanders  about  the  hills  of  the 
Ain  with  a  large  white  dog  and  a  small  black  one,  so  I  suppose  that  does 
as  well. 

She  was  always  fond  of  pigs,  and  because  of  this  Picasso  made  and 
gave  her  some  charming  drawings  of  the  prodigal  son  among  the  pigs. 
And  one  delightful  study  of  pigs  all  by  themselves.  It  was  about  this 
time  too  that  he  made  for  her  the  tiniest  of  ceiling  decorations  on  a  tiny 
wooden  panel  and  it  was  an  hommage  a  Gertrude  with  women  and 
angels  bringing  fruits  and  trumpeting.  For  years  she  had  this  tacked 
to  the  ceiling  over  her  bed.  It  was  only  after  the  war  that  it  was  put 
upon  the  wall. 

But  to  return  to  the  beginning  of  my  life  in  Paris.  It  was  based  upon 
the  rue  de  Fleurus  and  the  Saturday  evenings  and  it  was  like  a  kaleido- 
scope slowly  turning. 

What  happened  in  those  early  years.  A  great  deal  happened. 

As  I  said  when  I  became  an  habitual  visitor  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  the 
Picassos  were  once  more  together,  Pablo  and  Fernande.  That  summer 
they  went  again  to  Spain  and  he  came  back  with  some  Spanish  land- 


1907-1914  75 

scapes  and  one  may  say  that  these  landscapes,  two  of  them  still  at  the 
rue  de  Fleurus  and  the  other  one  in  Moscow  in  the  collection  that 
Stchoukine  founded  and  that  is  now  national  property,  were  the  begin- 
ning of  cubism.  In  these  there  was  no  african  sculpture  influence.  There 
was  very  evidently  a  strong  Cezanne  influence,  particularly  the  influence 
of  the  late  Cezanne  water  colours,  the  cutting  up  the  sky  not  in  cubes 
but  in  spaces. 

But  the  essential  thing,  the  treatment  of  the  houses  was  essentially 
Spanish  and  therefore  essentially  Picasso.  In  these  pictures  he  first  em- 
phasised the  way  of  building  in  Spanish  villages,  the  line  of  the  houses 
not  following  the  landscape  but  cutting  across  and  into  the  landscape, 
becoming  undistinguishable  in  the  landscape  by  cutting  across  the  land- 
scape. It  was  the  principle  of  the  camouflage  of  the  guns  and  the  ships 
in  the  war.  The  first  year  of  the  war,  Picasso  and  Eve,  with  whom  he  was 
living  then,  Gertrude  Stein  and  myself,  were  walking  down  the  boule- 
vard Raspail  a  cold  winter  evening.  There  is  nothing  in  the  world  colder 
than  the  Raspail  on  a  cold  winter  evening,  we  used  to  call  it  the  retreat 
from  Moscow.  All  of  a.  sudden  down  the  street  came  some  big  cannon, 
the  first  any  of  us  had  seen  painted,  that  is  camouflaged.  Pablo  stopped, 
he  was  spell-bound.  C'est  nous  qui  avons  fait  £a,  he  said,  it  is  we  that 
have  created  that,  he  said.  And  he  was  right,  he  had.  From  Cezanne 
through  him  they  had  come  to  that.  His  foresight  was  justified. 

But  to  go  back  to  the  three  landscapes.  When  they  were  first  put  up 
on  the  wall  naturally  everybody  objected.  As  it  happened  he  and  Fer- 
nande  had  taken  some  photographs  of  the  villages  which  he  had  painted 
and  he  had  given  copies  of  these  photographs  to  Gertrude  Stein.  When 
people  said  that  the  few  cubes  in  the  landscapes  looked  like  nothing  but 
cubes,  Gertrude  Stein  would  laugh  and  say,  if  you  had  objected  to  these 
landscapes  as  being  too  realistic  there  would  be  some  point  in  your  ob- 
jection. And  she  would  show  them  the  photographs  and  really  the  pic- 
tures as  she  rightly  said  might  be  declared  to  be  too  photographic  a  copy 
of  nature.  Years  after  Elliot  Paul  at  Gertrude  Stein's  suggestion  had  a 
photograph  of  the  painting  by  Picasso  and  the  photographs  of  the  vil- 
lage reproduced  on  the  same  page  in  transition  and  it  was  extraordinarily 
interesting.  This  then  was  really  the  beginning  of  cubism.  The  colour 
too  was  characteristically  Spanish,  the  pale  silver  yellow  with  the  faintest 
suggestion  of  green,  the  colour  afterwards  so  well  known  in  Picasso's 
cubist  pictures,  as  well  as  in  those  of  his  followers. 


76  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Gertrude  Stein  always  says  that  cubism  is  a  purely  Spanish  conception 
and  only  Spaniards  can  be  cubists  and  that  the  only  real  cubism  is  that  o£ 
Picasso  and  Juan  Gris.  Picasso  created  it  and  Juan  Gris  permeated  it 
with  his  clarity  and  his  exaltation.  To  understand  this  one  has  only  to 
read  the  life  and  death  of  Juan  Gris  by  Gertrude  Stein,  written  upon 
the  death  of  one  of  her  two  dearest  friends,  Picasso  and  Juan  Gris,  both 
Spaniards. 

She  always  says  that  americans  can  understand  Spaniards.  That  they 
are  the  only  two  western  nations  that  can  realise  abstraction.  That  in 
americans  it  expresses  itself  by  disembodiedness,  in  literature  and  ma- 
chinery, in  Spain  by  ritual  so  abstract  that  it  does  not  connect  itself  with 
anything  but  ritual. 

I  always  remember  Picasso  saying  disgustedly  apropos  of  some  ger- 
mans  who  said  they  liked  bull-fights,  they  would,  he  said  angrily,  they 
like  bloodshed.  To  a  Spaniard  it  is  not  bloodshed,  it  is  ritual. 

Americans,  so  Gertrude  Stein  says,  are  like  Spaniards,  they  are  abstract 
and  cruel.  They  are  not  brutal  they  are  cruel.  They  have  no  close  con- 
tact with  the  earth  such  as  most  europeans  have.  Their  materialism  is 
not  the  materialism  of  existence,  of  possession,  it  is  the  materialism  of 
action  and  abstraction.  And  so  cubism  is  Spanish. 

We  were  very  much  struck,  the  first  time  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  went 
to  Spain,  which  was  a  year  or  so  after  the  beginning  of  cubism,  to  see 
how  naturally  cubism  was  made  in  Spain.  In  the  shops  in  Barcelona  in- 
stead of  post  cards  they  had  square  little  frames  and  inside  it  was  placed 
a  cigar,  a  real  one,  a  pipe,  a  bit  of  handkerchief  etcetera,  all  absolutely 
the  arrangement  of  many  a  cubist  picture  and  helped  out  by  cut  paper 
representing  other  objects.  That  is  the  modern  note  that  in  Spain  had 
been  done  for  centuries. 

Picasso  in  his  early  cubist  pictures  used  printed  letters  as  did  Juan 
Gris  to  force  the  painted  surface  to  measure  up  to  something  rigid,  and 
the  rigid  thing  was  the  printed  letter.  Gradually  instead  of  using  the 
printed  thing  they  painted  the  letters  and  all  was  lost,  it  was  only  Juan 
Gris  who  could  paint  with  such  intensity  a  printed  letter  that  it  still 
made  the  rigid  contrast.  And  so  cubism  came  little  by  little  but  it  came. 

It  was  in  these  days  that  the  intimacy  between  Braque  and  Picasso 
grew.  It  was  in  these  days  that  Juan  Gris,  a  raw  rather  effusive  youth 
came  from  Madrid  to  Paris  and  began  to  call  Picasso  cher  maitre  to 
Picasso's  great  annoyance.  It  was  apropos  of  this  that  Picasso  used  to 


1907-1914  77 

address  Braque  as  cher  maitre,  passing  on  the  joke,  and  I  am  sorry  to 
say  that  some  foolish  people  have  taken  this  joke  to  mean  that  Picasso 
looked  up  to  Braque  as  a  master. 

But  I  am  once  more  running  far  ahead  of  those  early  Paris  days  when 
I  first  knew  Fernande  and  Pablo. 

In  those  days  then  only  the  three  landscapes  had  been  painted  and  he 
was  beginning  to  paint  some  heads  that  seemed  cut  out  in  planes,  also 
long  loaves  of  bread. 

At  this  time  Matisse,  the  school  still  going  on,  was  really  beginning 
to  be  fairly  well  known,  so  much  so  that  to  everybody's  great  excitement 
Bernheim  jeune,  a  very  middle  class  firm  indeed,  was  offering  him  a 
contract  to  take  all  his  work  at  a  very  good  price.  It  was  an  exciting 
moment. 

This  was  happening  because  of  the  influence  of  a  man  .named 
Feneon.  II  est  tres  fin/  said  Matisse,  much  impressed  by  Feneon. 
Feneon  was  a  journalist,  a  french  journalist  who  had  invented  the  thing 
called  a  feuilleton  en  deux  lignes,  that  is  to  say  he  was  the  first  one  to  hit 
off  the  news  of  the  day  in  two  lines.  He  looked  like  a  caricature  of  Uncle 
Sam  made  french  and  he  had  been  painted  standing  in  front  of  a  curtain 
in  a  circus  picture  by  Toulouse-Lautrec. 

And  now  the  Bernheims,  how  or  wherefor  I  do  not  know,  taking 
Feneon  into  their  employ,  were  going  to  connect  themselves  with  the 
new  generation  of  painters. 

Something  happened,  at  any  rate  this  contract  did  not  last  long,  but 
for  all  that  it  changed  the  fortunes  of  Matisse.  He  now  had  an  established 
position.  He  bought  a  house  and  some  land  in  Clamart  and  he  started 
to  move  out  there.  Let  me  describe  the  house  as  I  saw  it. 

This  home  in  Clamart  was  very  comfortable,  to  be  sure  the  bath-room, 
which  the  family  much  appreciated  from  long  contact  with  americans, 
although  it  must  be  said  that  the  Matisses  had  always  been  and  always 
were  scrupulously  neat  and  clean,  was  on  the  ground  floor  adjoining 
the  dining  room.  But  that  was  alright,  and  is  and  was  a  french  custom, 
in  french  houses.  It  gave  more  privacy  to  a  bath-room  to  have  it  on  the 
ground  floor.  Not  so  long  ago  in  going  over  the  new  house  Braque  was 
building  the  bath-room  was  again  below,  this  time  underneath  the  din- 
ing room.  When  we  said,  but  why,  they  said  because  being  nearer  the 
furnace  it  would  be  warmer. 

The  grounds  at  Clamart  were  large  and  the  garden  was  what  Matisse 


78  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

between  pride  and  chagrin  called  un  petit  Luxembourg.  There  was  also 
a  glass  forcing  house  for  flowers.  Later  they  had  begonias  in  them  that 
grew  smaller  and  smaller.  Beyond  were  lilacs  and  still  beyond  a  big  de- 
mountable studio.  They  liked  it  enormously.  Madame  Matisse  with 
simple  recklessness  went  out  every  day  to  look  at  it  and  pick  flowers, 
keeping  a  cab  waiting  for  her.  In  those  days  only  millionaires  kept  cabs 
waiting  and  then  only  very  occasionally. 

They  moved  out  and  were  very  comfortable  and  soon  the  enormous 
studio  was  filled  with  enormous  statues  and  enormous  pictures.  It  was 
that  period  of  Matisse.  Equally  soon  he  found  Clamart  so  beautiful  that 
he  could  not  go  home  to  it,  that  is  when  he  came  into  Paris  to  his  hour 
of  sketching  from  the  nude,  a  thing  he  had  done  every  afternoon  of  his 
life  ever  since  the  beginning  of  things,  and  he  came  in  every  afternoon. 
His  school  no  longer  existed,  the  government  had  taken  over  the  old 
convent  to  make  a  Lycee  of  it  and  the  school  fcad  come  to  an  end. 

These  were  the  beginning  of  very  prosperous  days  for  the  Matisses. 
They  went  to  Algeria  and  they  went  to  Tangiers  and  their  devoted 
german  pupils  gave  them  Rhine  wines  and  a  very  fine  black  police  dog, 
the  first  of  the  breed  that  any  of  us  had  seen. 

And  then  Matisse  had  a  great  show  of  his  pictures  in  Berlin.  I  remem- 
ber so  well  one  spring  day,  it  was  a  lovely  day  and  we  were  to  lunch  at 
Clamart  with  the  Matisses.  When  we  got  there  they  were  all  standing 
around  an  enormous  packing  case  with  its  top  off.  We  went  up  and 
joined  them  and  there  in  the  packing  case  was  the  largest  laurel  wreath 
that  had  ever  been  made,  tied  with  a  beautiful  red  ribbon.  Matisse 
showed  Gertrude  Stein  a  card  that  had  been  in  it.  It  said  on  it,  To  Henri 
Matisse,  Triumphant  on  the  Battlefield  of  Berlin,  and  was  signed 
Thomas  Whittemore.  Thomas  Whittemore  was  a  bostonian  archeologist 
and  professor  at  Tufts  College,  a  great  admirer  of  Matisse  and  this 
was  his  tribute.  Said  Matisse,  still  more  rueful,  but  I  am  not  dead  yet. 
Madame  Matisse,  the  shock  once  over  said,  but  Henri  look,  and  leaning 
down  she  plucked  a  leaf  and  tasted  it,  it  is  real  laurel,  think  how  good 
it  will  be  in  soup.  And,  said  she  still  further  brightening,  the  ribbon  will 
do  wonderfully  for  a  long  time  as  hair  ribbon  for  Margot. 

The  Matisses  stayed  in  Clamart  more  or  less  until  the  war.  During  this 
period  they  and  Gertrude  Stein  were  seeing  less  and  less  of  each  other. 
Then  after  the  war  broke  out  they  came  to  the  house  a  good  deal.  They 
were  lonesome  and  troubled,  Matisse's  family  in  Saint-Quentin,  in  the 


1907-1914  79 

north,  were  within  the  german  lines  and  his  brother  was  a  hostage.  It 
was  Madame  Matisse  who  taught  me  how  to  knit  woollen  gloves.  She 
made  them  wonderfully  neatly  and  rapidly  and  I  learned  to  do  so  too. 
Then  Matisse  went  to  live  in  Nice  and  in  one  way  and  another,  although 
remaining  perfectly  good  friends,  Gertrude  Stein  and  the  Matisses  never 
see  each  other. 

The  Saturday  evenings  in  those  early  days  were  frequented  by  many 
hungarians,  quite  a  number  of  germans,  quite  a  few  mixed  nationalities, 
a  very  thin  sprinkling  of  americans  and  practically  no  english.  These 
were  to  commence  later,  and  with  them  came  aristocracy  of  all  countries 
and  even  some  royalty. 

Among  the  germans  who  used  to  come  in  those  early  days  was  Pascin. 
He  was  at  that  time  a  thin  brilliant-looking  creature,  he  already  had  a 
considerable  reputation  as  maker  of  neat  little  caricatures  in  Simplicis- 
simus,  the  most  lively  of  the  german  comic  papers.  The  other  germans 
told  strange  stories  of  him.  That  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a  house  of 
prostitution  of  unknown  and  probably  royal  birth,  etcetera. 

He  and  Gertrude  Stein  had  not  met  since  those  early  days  but  a  few 
years  ago  they  saw  each  other  at  the  vernissage  of  a  young  dutch  painter 
Kristians  Tonny  who  had  been  a  pupil  of  Pascin  and  in  whose  work 
Gertrude  Stein  was  then  interested.  They  liked  meeting  each  other  and 
had  a  long  talk. 

Pascin  was  far  away  the  most  amusing  of  the  germans  although  I  can- 
not quite  say  that  because  there  was  Uhde. 

Uhde  was  undoubtedly  well  born,  he  was  not  a  blond  german,  he  was 
a  tallish  thin  dark  man  with  a  high  forehead  and  an  excellent  quick  wit. 
When  he  first  came  to  Paris  he  went  to  every  antiquity  shop  and  bric-a- 
brac  shop  in  the  town  in  order  to  see  what  he  could  find.  He  did  not  find 
much,  he  found  what  purported  to  be  an  Ingres,  he  found  a  few  very 
early  Picassos,  but  perhaps  he  found  other  things.  At  any  rate  when  the 
war  broke  out  he  was  supposed  to  have  been  one  of  the  super  spies  and 
to  have  belonged  to  the  german  staff. 

He  was  said  to  have  been  seen  near  the  french  war  office  after  the 
declaration  of  war,  undoubtedly  he  and  a  friend  had  a  summer  hpme 
very  near  what  was  afterward  the  Hindenburg  line.  Well  at  any  rate  he 
was  very  pleasant  and  very  amusing.  He  it  was  who  was  the  first  to  com- 
mercialise the  douanier  Rousseau's  pictures.  He  kept  a  kind  of  private 
art  shop.  It  was  here  that  Braque  and  Picasso  went  to  see  him  in  their 


80  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

newest  and  roughest  clothes  and  in  their  best  Cirque  Medrano  fashion 
kept  up  a  constant  fire  of  introducing  each  other  to  him  and  asking  each 
other  to  introduce  each  other. 

Uhde  used  often  to  come  Saturday  evening  accompanied  by  very  tall 
blond  good-looking  young  men  who  clicked  their  heels  and  bowed  and 
then  all  evening  stood  solemnly  at  attention.  They  made  a  very  effective 
background  to  the  rest  of  the  crowd.  I  remember  one  evening  when  the 
son  of  the  great  scholar  Breal  and  his  very  amusing  clever  wife  brought 
a  Spanish  guitarist  who  wanted  to  come  and  play.  Uhde  and  his  body- 
guard were  the  background  and  it  came  on  to  be  a  lively  evening,  the 
guitarist  played  and  Manolo  was  there.  It  was  the  only  time  I  ever  saw 
Manolo  the  sculptor,  by  that  time  a  legendary -figure  in  Paris.  Picasso 
very  lively  undertook  to  dance  a  southern  Spanish  dance  not  too  respect- 
able, Gertrude  Stein's  brother  did  the  dying  dance  of  Isadora, .it  was 
very  lively,  Fernande  and  Pablo  got  into  a  discussion  about  Frederic  of 
the  Lapin  Agile  and  apaches.  Fernande  contended  that  the  apaches  were 
better  than  the  artists  and  her  forefinger  went  up  in  the  air.  Picasso  said, 
yes  apaches  of  course  have  their  universities,  artists  do  not.  Fernande  got 
angry  and  shook  him  and  said,  you  think  you  are  witty,  but  you  are  only 
stupid.  He  ruefully  showed  that  she  had  shaken  off  a  button  and  she 
very  angry  said,  and  you,  your  only  claim  to  distinction  is  that  you  are  a 
precocious  child.  Things  were  not  in  those  days  going  any  too  well  be- 
tween them,  it  was  just -about  the  time  that  they  were  quitting  the  rue 
Ravignan  to  live  in  an  apartment  in  the  boulevard  Clichy,  where  they 
were  to  have  a  servant  and  to  be  prosperous. 

But  to  return  to  Uhde  and  first  to  Manolo.  Manolo  was  perhaps  Pi- 
casso's oldest  friend.  He  was  a  strange  Spaniard.  He,  so  the  legend  said, 
was  the  brother  of  one  of  the  greatest  pickpockets  in  Madrid.  Manolo 
himself  was  gentle  and  admirable.  He  was  the  only  person  in  Paris  with 
whom  Picasso  spoke  Spanish.  All  the  other  Spaniards  had  french  wives 
or  french  mistresses  and  having  so  much  the  habit  of  speaking  french 
they  always  talked  french  to  each  other.  This  always  seemed  very  strange 
to  me.  However  Picasso  and  Manolo  always  talked  Spanish  to  each  other. 

There  were  many  stories  about  Manolo,  he  had  always  loved  and  he 
had  always  lived  under  the  protection  of  the  saints.  They  told  the  story 
of  how  when  he  first  came  to  Paris  he  entered  the  first  church  he  saw 

• 

and  there  he  saw  a  woman  bring  a  chair  to  some  one  and  receive  money. 


1907-1914  81 

So  Manolo  did  the  same,  he  went  into  many  churches  and  always  gave 
everybody  a  chair  and  always  got  money,  until  one  day  he  was  caught 
by  the  woman  whose  business  it  was  and  whose  chairs  they  were  and 
there  was  trouble. 

He  once  was  hard  up  and  he  proposed  to  his  friends  to  take  lottery 
tickets  for  one  of  his  statues,  everybody  agreed,  and  then  when  every- 
body met  they  found  they  all  had  the  same  number.  When  they  re- 
proached him  he  explained  that  he  did  this  because  he  knew  his  friends 
would  be  unhappy  if  they  did  not  all  have  the  same  number.  He  was 
supposed  to  have  left  Spain  while  he  was  doing  his  military  service,  that 
is  to  say  he  was  in  the  cavalry  and  he  went  across  the  border,  and  sold 
his  horse  and  his  accoutrement,  and  so  had  enough  money  to  come  to 
Paris  and  be  a  sculptor.  He  once  was  left  for  a  few  days  in  the  house  of  a 
friend  of  Gauguin.  When  the  owner  of  the  house  came  back  all  his  Gau- 
guin souvenirs  and  all  his  Gauguin  sketches  were  gone.  Manolo  had  sold 
them  to  Vollard  and  Vollard  had  to  give  them  back.  Nobody  minded. 
Manolo  was  like  a  sweet  crazy  religiously  uplifted  Spanish  beggar  and 
everybody  was  fond  of  him.  Morcas,  the  greek  poet,  who  in  those  days 
was  a  very  well  known  figure  in  Paris  was  very  fond  of  him  and  used 
to  take  him  with  him  for  company  whenever  he  had  anything  to  do. 
Manolo  always  went  in  hopes  of  getting  a  meal  but  he  used  to  be  left 
ito  wait  while  Moreas  ate.  Manolo  was  always  patient  and  always  hopeful 
although  Moreas  was  as  well  known  then  as  Guillaume  Apollinaire  was 
later,  to  pay  rarely  or  rather  not  at  all. 

Manolo  used  to  make  statues  for  joints  in  Montmartre  in  return  for 
meals  etcetera,  until  Alfred  Stieglitz  heard  of  him  and  showed  his  things 
in  New  York  and  sold  some  of  them  and  then  Manolo  returned  to  the 
french  frontier,  Ceret  and  there  he  has  lived  ever  since,  turning  night 
into  day,  he  and  his  Catalan  wife. 

But  Uhde.  Uhde  one  Saturday  evening  presented  his  fiancee  to  Ger- 
trude Stein.  Uhde's  morals  were  not  all  that  they  should  be  and  as  his 
fiancee  seemed  a  very  well  to  do  and  very  conventional  young  woman 
we  were  all  surprised.  But  it  turned  out  that  it  was  an  arranged  mar- 
riage. Uhde  wished  to  respectabilise  himself  and  she  wanted  to  come 
into  possession  of  her  inheritance,  which  she  could  only  do  upon  mar- 
riage. Shortly  after  she  married  Uhde  and  shortly  after  they  were 
divorced.  She  then  married  Delaunay  the  painter  who  was  just  then 


82  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

coming  into  the  foreground.  He  was  the  founder  of  the  first  of  the  many 
vulgarisations  of  the  cubist  idea,  the  painting  of  houses  out  of  plumb, 
what  was  called  the  catastrophic  school. 

Delaunay  was  a  big  blond  frenchman.  He  had  a  lively  little  mother. 
She  used  to  come  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  with  old  vicomtes  who  looked 
exactly  like  one's  youthful  idea  of  what  an  old  french  marquis  should 
look  like.  These  always  left  their  cards  and  then  wrote  a  solemn  note  of 
thanks  and  never  showed  in  any  way  how  entirely  out  of  place  they 
must  have  felt.  Delaunay  himself  was  amusing.  He  was  fairly  able  and 
inordinately  ambitious.  He  was  always  asking  how  old  Picasso  had  been 
when  he  had  painted  a  certain  picture.  When  he  was  told  he  always  said, 
oh  I  am  not  as  old  as  that  yet.  I  will  do  as  much  when  I  am  that  age. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  he  did  progress  very  rapidly.  He  used  to  come  a 
great  deal  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus.  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  delight  in  him. 
He  was  funny  and  he  painted  one  rather  fine  picture,  the  three  graces 
standing  in  front  of  Paris,  an  enormous  picture  in  which  he  combined 
everybody's  ideas  and  added  a  certain  french  clarity  and  freshness  of  his 
own.  It  had  a  rather  remarkable  atmosphere  and  it  had  a  great  success. 
After  that  his  pictures  lost  all  quality,  they  grew  big  and  empty  or  small 
and  empty.  I  remember  his  bringing  one  of  these  small  ones  to  the  house, 
saying,  look  I  am  bringing  you  a  small  picture,  a  jewel.  It  is  small,  said 
Gertrude  Stein,  but  is  it  a  jewel. 

It  was  Delaunay  who  married  the  ex-wife  of  Uhde  and  they  kept  up 
quite  an  establishment.  They  took  up  Guillaume  Apollinaire  and  it  was 
he  who  taught  them  how  to  cook  and  how  to  live.  Guillaume  was  ex- 
traordinary. Nobody  but  Guillaume,  it  was  the  italian  in  Guillaume, 
Stella  the  New  York  painter  could  do  the  same  thing  in  his  early  youth 
in  Paris,  could  make  fun  of  his  hosts,  make  fun  of  their  guests,  make 
fun  of  their  food  and  spur  them  to  always  greater  and  greater  effort. 

It  was  Guillaume's  first  opportunity  to  travel,  he  went  to  Germany 
with  Delaunay  and  thoroughly  enjoyed  himself. 

Uhde  used  to  delight  in  telling  how  his  former  wife  came  to  his 
house  one  day  and  dilating  upon  Delaunay 's  future  career,  explained  to 
him  that  he  should  abandon  Picasso  and  Braque,  the  past,  and  devote 
himself  to  the  cause  of  Delaunay,  the  future.  Picasso  and  Braque  at  this 
time  it  must  be  remembered  were  not  yet  thirty  years  old.  Uhde  told 
everybody  this  story  with  a  great  many  witty  additions  and  always  add- 
ing, I  tell  you  all  this  sans  discretion,  that  is  tell  it  to  everybody. 


1907-1914  83 

The  other  german  who  came  to  the  house  in  those  days  was  a  dull  one. 
He  is,  I  understand  a  very  important  man  now  in  his  own  country  and 
he  was  a  most  faithful  friend  to  Matisse,  at  all  times,  even  during  the 
war.  He  was  the  bulwark  of  the  Matisse  school.  Matisse  was  not  always 
or  indeed  often  very  kind  to  him.  All  women  loved  him,  so  it  was  sup- 
posed. He  was  a  stocky  Don  Juan.  I  remember  one  big  Scandinavian 
who  loved  him  and  who  would  never  come  in  on  Saturday  evening  but 
stood  in  the  court  and  whenever  the  door  opened  for  some  one  to  come 
in  or  go  out  you  could  see  her  smile  in  the  dark  of  the  court  like  the 
smile  of  the  Cheshire  cat.  He  was  always  bothered  by  Gertrude  Stein. 
She  did  and  bought  such  strange  things.  He  never  dared  to  criticise  any- 
thing to  her  but  to  me  he  would  say,  and  you,  Mademoiselle,  do  you, 
pointing  to  the  despised  object,  do  you  find  that  beautiful. 

Once  when  we  were  in  Spain,  in  fact  the  first  time  we  went  to  Spain, 
Gertrude  Stein  had  insisted  upon  buying  in  Cuenca  a  brand  new  enor- 
mous turtle  made  of  Rhine  stones.  She  had  very  lovely  old  jewellery,  but 
with  great  satisfaction  to  herself  she  was  wearing  this  turtle  as  a  clasp. 
Purrmann  this  time  was  dumbfounded.  He  got  me  into  a  corner.  That 
jewel,  he  said,  that  Miss  Stein  is  wearing,  are  those  stones  real. 

Speaking  of  Spain  also  reminds  me  that  once  we  were  in  a  crowded 
restaurant.  Suddenly  in  the  end  of  the  room  a  tall  form  stood  up  and  a 
man  bowed  solemnly  at  Gertrude  Stein  who  as  solemnly  replied.  It  was 
a  stray  hungarian  from  Saturday  evening,  surely. 

There  was  another  german  whom  I  must  admit  we  both  liked.  This 
was  much  later,  about  nineteen  twelve.  He  too  was  a  dark  tall  german. 
He  talked  english,  he  was  a  friend  of  Marsden  Hartley  whom  we  liked 
very  much,  and  we  liked  his  german  friend,  I  cannot  say  that  we  did  not. 

He  used  to  describe  himself  as  the  rich  son  of  a  not  so  rich  father.  In 
other  words  he  had  a  large  allowance  from  a  moderately  poor  father 
who  was  a  university  professor.  Ronnebeck  was  charming  and  he  was 
always  invited  to  dinner.  He  was  at  dinner  one  evening  when  Berenson 
the  famous  critic  of  Italian  art  was  there.  Ronnebeck  had  brought  with 
him  some  photographs  of  pictures  by  Rousseau.  He  had  left  them  in  the 
atelier  and  we  were  all  in  the  dining  room.  Everybody  began  to  talk 
about  Rousseau.  Berenson  was  puzzled,  but  Rousseau,  Rosseau,  he  said, 
Rousseau  was  an  honourable  painter  but  why  all  this  excitement.  Ah, 
he  said  with  a  sigh,  fashions  change,  that  I  know,  but  really  I  never 
thought  that  Rousseau  would  come  to  be  the  fashion  for  the  young. 


84  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Berenson  had  a  tendency  to  be  supercilious  and  so  everybody  let  him  go 
on  and  on.  Finally  Ronnebeck  said  gently,  but  perhaps  Mr.  Berenson, 
you  have  never  heard  of  the  great  Rousseau,  the  douanier  Rousseau.  No, 
admitted  Berenson,  he  hadn't,  and  later  when  he  saw  the  photographs  he 
understood  less  than  ever  and  was  fairly  fussed.  Mabel  Dodge  who  was 
present,  said,  but  Berenson,  you  must  remember  that  art  is  inevitable. 
That,  said  Berenson  recovering  himself,  you  understand,  you  being  your- 
self a  femrhe  fatale. 

We  were  fond  of  Ronnebeck  and  beside  the  first  time  he  came  to  the 
house  he  quoted  some  of  Gertrude  Stein's  recent  work  to  her.  She  had 
loaned  some  manuscript  to  Marsden  Hartley.  It  was  the  first  time  that 
anybody  had  quoted  her  work  to  her  and  she  naturally  liked  it.  He  also 
made  a  translation  into  german  of  some  of  the  portraits  she  was  writing 
at  that  time  and  thus  brought  her  her  first  international  reputation. 
That  however  is  not  quite  true,  Roche  the  faithful  Roche  had  introduced 
some*young  germans  to  Three  Lives  and  they  were  already  under  its 
spell.  However  Ronnebeck  was  charming  and  we  were  very  fond  of 
him. 

Ronnebeck  was  a  sculptor,  he  did  small  full  figure  portraits  and  was 
doing  them  very  well,  he  was  in  love  with  an  american  girl  who  was 
studying  music.  He  liked  France  and  all  french  things  and  he  was  very 
fond  of  us.  We  all  separated  as  usual  for  the  summer.  He  said  he  had  a 
very  amusing  summer  before  him.  He  had  a  commission  to  do  a  portrait 
figure  of  a  countess  and  her  two  sons,  the  little  counts  and  he  was  to 
spend  the  summer  doing  this  in  the  home  of  the  countess  who  had  a 
magnificent  place  on  the  shores  of  the  Baltic. 

When  we  all  came  back  that  winter  Ronnebeck  was  different.  In  the 
first  place  he  came  back  with  lots  of  photographs  of  ships  of  the  german 
navy  and  insisted  upon  showing  them  to  us.  We  were  not  interested. 
Gertrude  Stein  said,  of  course,  Ronnebeck,  you  have  a  navy,  of  course, 
we  americans  have  a  navy,  everybody  has  a  navy,  but  to  anybody  but 
the  navy,  one  big  ironclad  looks  very  much  like  any  other,  don't  be  silly. 
He  was  different  though.  He  had  had  a  good  time.  He  had  photos  of 
himself  with  all  the  counts  and  there  was  also  one  with  the  crown  prince 
of  Germany  who  was  a  great  friend  of  the  countess.  The  winter,  it  was 
the  winter  of  1913-1914,  wore  on.  All  the  usual  things  happened  and  we 
gave  as  usual  some  dinner  parties.  I  have  forgotten  what  the  occasion  of 
one  was  but  we  thought  Ronnebeck  would  do  excellently  for  it.  We  in- 


1907-1914  85 

vited  him.  He  sent  word  that  he  had  to  go  to  Munich  for  two  days  but 
he  would  travel  at  night  and  get  back  for  the  dinner  party.  This  he  did 
and  was  delightful  as  he  always  was. 

Pretty  soon  he  went  off  on  a  trip  to  the  north,  to  visit  the  cathedral 
towns.  When  he  came  back  he  brought  us  a  series  of  photographs  of  all 
these  northern  towns  seen  from  above.  What  are  these,  Gertrude  Stein 
asked.  Oh,  he  said,  I  thought  you  would  be  interested,  they  are  views  I 
have  taken  of  all  the  cathedral  towns.  I  took  them  from  the  tip  top  of 
the  steeples  and  I  thought  you  would  be  interested  because  see,  he  said, 
they  look  exactly  like  the  pictures  of  the  followers  of  Delaunay,  what 
you  call  the  earthquake  school,  he  said  turning  to  me.  We  thanked  him 
and  thought  no  more  about  it.  Later  when  during  the  war  I  found  them, 
I  tore  them  up  in  a  rage. 

Then  we  all  began  to  talk  about  our  summer  plans.  Gertrude  Stein 
was  to  go  to  London  in  July  to  see  John  Lane  to  sign  the  contract  for 
Three  Lives.  Ronnebeck  said,  why  don't  you  come  to  Germany  instead 
or  rather  before  or  immediately  after,  he  said.  Because,  said  Gertrude 
Stein,  as  you  know  I  don't  like  germans.  Yes  I  know,  said  Ronnebeck,  I 
know,  but  you  like  me  and  you  would  have  such  a  wonderful  time. 
They  would  be  so  interested  and  it  would  mean  so  much  to  them,  do 
come,  he  said.  No,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  I  like  you  alright  but  I  don't 
like  germans. 

We  went  to  England  in  July  and  when  we  got  there  Gertrude  Stein 
had  a  letter  from  Ronnebeck  saying  that  he  still  awfully  wanted  us  to 
come  to  Germany  but  since  we  wouldn't  had  we  not  better  spend  the 
summer  in  England  or  perhaps  in  Spain  but  not  as  we  had  planned  come 
back  to  Paris.  That  was  naturally  the  end.  I  tell  the  story  for  what  it  is 
worth. 

When  I  first  came  to  Paris  there  was  a  very  small  sprinkling  of  amer- 
icans  Saturday  evenings,  this  sprinkling  grew  gradually  more  abundant 
but  before  I  tell  about  americans  I  must  tell  all  about  the  banquet  to 
Rousseau. 

In  the  beginning  of  my  stay  in  Paris  a  friend  and  I  were  living  as  I 
have  already  said  in  a  little  apartment  on  the  rue  Notre-Dame-des- 
Champs.  I  was  no  longer  taking  french  lessons  from  Fernande  because 
she  and  Picasso  were  together  again  but  she  was  not  an  infrequent  vis- 
itor. Autumn  had  come  and  I  can  remember  it  very  well  because  I  had 
bought  my  first  winter  Paris  hat.  It  was  a  very  fine  hat  of  black  velvet, 


86  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

a  big  hat  with  a  brilliant  yellow  fantaisie.  Even  Fernande  gave  it  her 
approval. 

Fernande  was  lunching  with  us  one  day  and  she  said  that  there  was 
going  to  be  a  banquet  given  for  Rousseau  and  that  she  was  giving  it. 
She  counted  up  the  number  of  the  invited.  We  were  included.  Who  was 
Rousseau.  I  did  not  know  but  that  really  did  not  matter  since  it  was  to 
be  a  banquet  and  everybody  was  to  go,  and  we  were  invited. 

Next  Saturday  evening  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  everybody  was  talking 
about  the  banquet  to  Rousseau  and  then  I  found  out  that  Rousseau  was 
the  painter  whose  picture  I  had  seen  in  that  first  independent.  It  ap- 
peared that  Picasso  had  recently  found  in  Montmartre  a  large  portrait 
of  a  woman  by  Rousseau,  that  he  had  bought  it  and  that  this  festivity 
was  in  honour  of  the  purchase  and  the  painter.  It  was  going  to  be  very 
wonderful. 

Fernande  told  me  a  great  deal  about  the  menu.  There  was  to  be  riz  a 
la  Valenciennes,  Fernande  had  learnt  how  to  cook  this  on  her  last  trip 
to  Spain,  and  then  she  had  ordered,  I  forget  now  what  it  was  that  she 
had  ordered,  but  she  had  ordered  a  great  deal  at  Felix  Potin,  the  chain 
store  of  groceries  where  they  made  prepared  dishes.  Everybody  was  ex- 
cited. It  was  Guillaume  Apollinaire,  as  I  remember,  who  knowing  Rous- 
seau very  well  had  induced  him  to  promise  to  come  and  was  to  bring 
him  and  everybody  was  to  write  poetry  and  songs  and  it  was  to  be  very 
rigolo,  a  favourite  Montmartre  word  meaning  a  jokeful  amusement.  We 
were  all  to  meet  at  the  cafe  at  the  foot  of  the  rue  Ravignan  and  to  have 
an  aperitif  and  then  go  up  to  Picasso's  atelier  and  have  dinner.  I  put  on 
my  new  hat  and  we  all  went  to  Montmartre  and  all  met  at  the  cafe. 

As  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  came  into  the  cafe  there  seemed  to  be  a  great 
many  people  present  and  in  the  midst  was  a  tall  thin  girl  who  with  her 
long  thin  arms  extended  was  swaying  forward  and  back.  I  did  not  know 
what  she  was  doing,  it  was  evidently  not  gymnastics,  it  was  bewildering 
but  she  looked  very  enticing.  What  is  that,  I  whispered  to  Gertrude  Stein. 
Oh  that  is  Marie  Laurencin,  I  am  afraid  she  had  been  taking  too  many 
preliminary  aperitifs.  Is  she  the  old  lady  that  Fernande  told  me  about 
who  makes  noises  like  animals  and  annoys  Pablo.  She  annoys  Pablo  al- 
right but  she  is  a  very  young  lady  and  she  has  had  too  much,  said  Ger- 
trude Stein  going  in.  Just  then  there  was  a  violent  noise  at  the  door  of 
the  cafe  and  Fernande  appeared  very  large,  very  excited  and  very  angry. 
Felix  Potin,  said  she,  has  not  sent  the  dinner.  Everybody  seemed  over- 


1907-1914  87 

come  at  these  awful  tidings  but  I,  in  my  american  way  said  to  Fernande, 
come  quickly,  let  us  telephone.  In  those  days  in  Paris  one  did  not  tele- 
phone and  never  to  a  provision  store.  But  Fernande  consented  and  off 
we  went.  Everywhere  we  went  there  was  either  no  telephone  or  it  was 
not  working,  finally  we  got  one  that  worked  but  Felix  Potin  was  closed 
or  closing  and  it  was  deaf  to  our  appeals.  Fernande  was  completely  upset  § 
but  finally  I  persuaded  her  to  tell  me  just  what  we  were  to  have  had 
from  Felix  Potin  and  then  in  one  little  shop  and  another  little  shop  in 
Montmartre  we  found  substitutes,  Fernande  finally  announcing  that  she 
had  made  so  much  riz  a  la  Valenciennes  that  it  would  take  the  place  of 
everything  and  it  did. 

When  we  were  back  at  the  cafe  almost  everybody  who  had  been  there 
had  gone  and  some  new  ones  had  come,  Fernande  told  them  all  to  come 
along.  As  we  toiled  up  the  hill  we  saw  in  front  of  us  the  whole  crowd. 
In  the  middle  was  Marie  Laurencin  supported  on  the  one  side  by  Ger- 
trude Stein  and  on  the  other  by  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  and  she  was 
falling  first  into  one  pair  of  arms  and  then  into  another,  her  voice  always 
high  and  sweet  and  her  arms  always  thin  graceful  and  long.  Guillaume 
of  course  was  not  there,  he  was'  to  bring  Rousseau  himself  after  every 
one  was  seated. 

Fernande  passed  this  slow  moving  procession,  I  following  her  and 
we  arrived  at  the  atelier.  It  was  rather  impressive.  They  had  gotten  tres- 
tles, carpenter's  trestles,  and  on  them  had  placed  boards  and  all  around 
these  boards  were  benches.  At  the  head  of  the  table  was  the  new  acquisi- 
tion, the  Rousseau,  draped  in  flags  and  wreaths  and  flanked  on  either 
side  by  big  statues,  I  do  not  remember  what  statues.  It  was  very  mag- 
nificent and  very  festive.  The  riz  a  la  Valenciennes  was  presumably 
cooking  below  in  Max  Jacob's  studio.  Max  not  being  on  good  terms  with 
Picasso  was  not  present  but  they  used  his  studio  for  the  rice  and  for  the 
men's  overcoats.  The  ladies  were  to  put  theirs  in  the  front  studio  which 
had  been  Van  Dongen's  in  his  spinach  days  and  now  belonged  to  a 
frenchman  by  the  name  of  Vaillant.  This  was  the  studio  which  was  later 
t6  be  Juan  Gris'. 

I  had  just  time  to  deposit  my  hat  and  admire  the  arrangements,  Fer- 
nande violently  abusing  Marie  Laurencin  all  the  time,  when  the  crowd 
arrived.  Fernande  large  and  imposing,  barred  the  way,  she  was  not  going 
to  have  her  party  spoiled  by  Marie  Laurencin.  This  was  a  serious  party, 
a  serious  banquet  for  Rousseau  and  neither  she  nor  Pablo  would  tolerate 


88  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

such  conduct.  Of  course  Pablo,  all  this  time,  was  well  out  of  sight  in  the 
rear.  Gertrude  Stein  remonstrated,  she  said  half  in  english  half  in  french, 
that  she  would  be  hanged  if  after  the  struggle  of  getting  Marie  Lauren- 
cin  up  that  terrific  hill  it  was  going  to  be  for  nothing.  No  indeed  and 
beside  she  reminded  Fernande  that  Guillaume  and  Rousseau  would  be 
along  any  minute  and  it  was  necessary  that  every  one  should  be  decor- 
ously seated  before  that  event.  By  this  time  Pablo  had  made  his  way  to 
the  front  and  he  joined  in  and  said,  yes  yes,  and  Fernande  yielded.  She 
was  always  a  little  afraid  of  Guillaume  Apollinaire,  of  his  solemnity  and 
of  his  wit,  and  they  all  came  in.  Everybody  sat  down. 

Everybody  sat  down  and  everybody  began  to  eat  rice  and  other  things, 
that  is  as  soon  as  Guillaume  Apollinaire  and  Rqusseau  came  in  which 
they  did  very  presently  and  were  wildly  acclaimed.  How  well  I  remem- 
ber their  coming.  Rousseau  a  little  small  colourless  frenchman  with  a 
little  beard,  like  any  number  of  frenchmen  one  saw  everywhere.  Guil- 
laume Apollinaire  with  finely  cut  florid  features,  dark  hair  and  a  beauti- 
ful complexion.  Everybody  was  presented  and  everybody  sat  down  again. 
Guillaume  slipped  into  a  seat  beside  Marie  Laurencin.  At  the  sight  of 
Guillaume,  Marie  who  had  become  comparatively  calm  seated  next  to 
Gertrude  Stein,  broke  out  again  in  wild  movements  and  outcries.  Guil- 
laume got  her  out  of  the  door  and  downstairs  and  after  a  decent  interval 
they  came  back  Marie  a  little  bruised  but  sober.  By  this  time  everybody 
had  eaten  everything  and  poetry  began.  Oh  yes,  before  this  Frederic  of 
the  Lapin  Agile  and  the  University  of  Apaches  had  wandered  in  with 
his  usual  companion  a  donkey,  was  given  a  drink  and  wandered  out 
again.  Then  a  little  later  some  Italian  street  singers  hearing  of  the  party 
came  in.  Fernande  rose  at  the  end  of  the  table  and  flushed  and  her  fore- 
finger straight  into  the  air  said  it  was  not  that  kind  of  a  party,  and  they 
were  promptly  thrown  out. 

Who  was  there.  We  were  there  and  Salmon,  Andre  Salmon,  then  a 
rising  young  poet  and  journalist,  Pichot  and  Germaine  Pichot,  Braque 
and  perhaps  Marcelle  Braque  but  this  I  do  not  remember,  I  know  that 
there  was  talk  of  her  at  that  time,  the  Raynals,  the  Ageros  the  false  Greco 
and  his  wife,  and  several  other  pairs  whol  did  not  know  and  do  not 
remember  and  Vaillant,  a  very  amiable  ordinary  young  frenchman  who 
had  the  front  studio. 

The  ceremonies  began.  Guillaume  Apollinaire  gdt  up  and  made  a  sol- 
emn eulogy,  I  do  not  remember  at  all  what  he  said  but  it  ended  up 


1907-1914  89 

with  a  poem  he  had  written  and  which  he  half  chanted  and  in  which 
everybody  joined  in  the  refrain,  La  peinture  de  ce  Rousseau.  Somebody 
else  then,  possibly  Raynal,  I  don't  remember,  got  up  and  there  were 
toasts,  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  Andre  Salmon  who  was  sitting  next  to 
my  friend  and  solemnly  discoursing  of  literature  and  travels,  leaped  upon 
the  by  no  means  solid  table  and  poured  out  an  extemporaneous  eulogy 
and  poem.  At  the  end  he  seized  a  big  glass  and  drank  what  was  in  it, 
then  promptly  went  off  his  head,  being  completely  drunk,  and  began  to 
fight.  The  men  all  got  hold  of  him,  the  statues  tottered,  Braque,  a  great 
big  chap,  got  hold  of  a  statue  in  either  arm  and  stood  there  holding 
them  while  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  another  big  chap,  protected  little 
Rousseau  and  his  violin  from  harm.  The  others  with  Picasso  leading  be- 
cause Picasso  though  small  is  very  strong,  dragged  Salmon  into  the  front 
atelier  and  locked  him  in.  Everybody  came  back  and  sat  down. 

Thereafter  the  evening  was  peaceful.  Marie  Laurencin  sang  in  a  thin 
voice  some  charming  old  norman  songs.  The  wife  of  Agero  sang  some 
charming  old  limousin  songs,  Pichot  danced  a  wonderful  religious  Span- 
ish dance  ending  in  making  of  himself  a  crucified  Christ  upon  the  floor. 
Guillaume  Apollinaire  solemnly  approached  myself  and  my  friend  and 
asked  us  to  sing  some  of  the  native  songs  of  the  red  indians.  We  did 
not  either  of  us  feel  up  to  that  to  the  great  regret  of  Guillaume  and  all 
the  company.  Rousseau  blissful  and  gentle  played  the  violin  and  told  us 
about  the  plays  he  had  written  and  his  memories  of  Mexico.  It  was  all 
very  peaceful  and  about  three  o'clock  in  the  morning  we  all  went  into 
the  atelier  where  Salmon  had  been  deposited  and  where  we  had  left  our 
hats  and  coats  to  get  them  to  go  home.  There  on  the  couch  lay  Salmon 
peacefully  sleeping  and  surrounding  him,  half  chewed,  were  a  box  of 
matches,  a  petit  bleu  and  my  yellow  fantaisie.  Imagine  my  feelings  even 
at  three  o'clock  in  the  morning.  However,  Salmon  woke  up  very  charm- 
ing and  very  polite  and  we  all  went  out  into  the  street  together.  All  of 
a  sudden  with  a  wild  yell  Salmon  rushed  down  the  hill. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  her  brother,  my  friend  and  I,  all  in  one  cab,  took 
Rousseau  home. 

It  was  about  a  month  later  that  one  dark  Paris  winter  afternoon  I  was 
hurrying  home  and  felt  myself  being  followed.  I  hurried  and  hurried  and 
the  footsteps  drew  nearer  and  I  heard,  mademoiselle,  mademoiselle.  I 
turned.  It  was  Rousseau.  Oh  mademoiselle,  he  said,  you  should  not  be 
out  alone  after  dark,  may  I  see  you  home.  Which  he  did. 


90  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  Kahnweiler  came  to  Paris.  Kahnweiler 
was  a  german  married  to  a  frenchwoman  and  they  had  lived  for  many 
years  in  England.  Kahnweiler  had  been  in  England  in  business,  saving 
money  to  carry  out  a  dream  of  some  day  having  a  picture  shop  in  Paris. 
The  time  had  come  and  he  started  a  neat  small  gallery  in  the  rue  Vignon. 
He  felt  his  way  a  little  and  then  completely  threw  in  his  lot  with  the 
cubist  group.  There  were  difficulties  at  first,  Picasso  always  suspicious 
did  not  want  to  go  too  far  with  him.  Fernande  did  the  bargaining  with 
Kahnweiler  but  finally  they  all  realised  the  genuineness  of  his  interest 
and  his  faith,  and  that  he  could  and  would  market  their  work.- They  all 
made  contracts  with  him  and  until  the  war  he  did  everything  for  them 
all.  The  afternoons  with  the  group  coming  in  and  out  of  his  shop  were 
for  Kahnweiler  really  afternoons  with  Vasari.  He  believed  in  them 
and  their  future  greatness.  It  was  only  the  year  before  the  war  that  he 
added  Juan  Gris.  It  was  just  two  months  before  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
that  Gertrude  Stein  saw  the  first  Juan  Gris  paintings-  at  Kahnweiler's 
and  bought  three  of  them. 

Picasso  always  says  that  he  used  in  those  days  to  tell  Kahnweiler  that 
he  should  become  a  french  citizen,  that  war  would  come  and  there  would 
be  the  devil  to  pay.  Kahnweiler  always  said  he  would  when  he  had 
passed  the  military  age  but  that  he  naturally  did  not  want  to  do  military 
service  a  second  time.  The  war  came,  Kahnweiler  was  in  Switzerland 
with  his  family  on  his  vacation  and  he  could  not  come  back.  All  his  pos- 
sessions were  sequestrated. 

The  auction  sale  by  the  government  of  Kahnweiler's  pictures,  prac- 
tically all  the  cubist  pictures  of  the  three  years  before  the  war,  was  the 
first  occasion  after  the  war  where  everybody  of  the  old  crowd  met.  There 
had  been  quite  a  conscious  effort  on  the  part  of  all  the  older  merchants, 
now  that  the  war  was  over,  to  kill  cubism.  The  expert  for  the  sale,  who 
was  a  well  known  picture  dealer,  had  avowed  this  as  his  intention.  He 
would  keep  the  prices  down  as  low  as  possible  and  discourage  the  public 
as  much  as  possible.  How  could  the  artists  defend  themselves. 

We  happened  to  be  with  the  Braques  a  day  or  two  before  the  public 
show  of  pictures  for  the  sale  and  Marcelle  Braque,  Braque's  wife,  told  us 
that  they  had  come  to  a  decision.  Picasso  and  Juan  Gris  could  do  noth- 
ing they  were  Spaniards,  and  this  was  a  french  government  sale.  Marie 
Laurencin  was  technically  a  german,  Lipschitz  was  a  russian  at  that 
time  not  a  popular  thing  to  be.  Braque  a  frenchman,  who  had  won  the 


1907-1914  91 

croix  de  guerre  in  a  charge,  who  had  been  made  an  officer  and  had  won 
the  legion  d'honneur  and  had  had  a  bad  head  wound  could  do  what 
he  pleased.  He  had  a  technical  reason  too  for  picking  a  quarrel  with  the 
expert.  He  had  sent  in  a  list  of  people  likely  to  buy  his  pictures,  a  privi- 
lege always  accorded  to  an  artist  whose  pictures  are  to  be  publicly  sold, 
and  catalogues  had  not  been  sent  to  these  people.  When  we  arrived 
Braque  had  already  done  his  duty.  We  came  in  just  at  the  end  of  the 
fray.  There  was  a  great  excitement. 

Braque  had  approached  the  expert  and  told  him  that  he  had  neglected 
his  obvious  duties.  The  expert  had  replied  that  he  had  done  and  would 
do  as  he  pleased  and  called  Braque  a  norman  pig.  Braque  had  hit  him. 
Braque  is  a  big  man  and  the  expert  is  not  and  Braque  tried  not  to  hit 
hard  but  nevertheless  the  expert  fell.  The  police  came  in  and  they  were 
taken  oil  to  the  police  station.  There  they  told  their  story.  Braque  of 
course  as  a  hero  of  the  war  was  treated  with  all  due  respect,  and  when 
he  spoke  to  the  expert  using  the  familiar  thou  the  expert  completely  lost 
his  temper  and  his  head  and  was  publicly  rebuked  by  the  magistrate. 
Just  after  it  was  over  Matisse  came  in  and  wanted  to  know  what  had 
happened  and  was  happening,  Gertrude  Stein  told  him.  Matisse  said, 
and  it  was  a  Matisse  way  to  say  it,  Braque  a  raison,  celui-la  a  vole  la 
France,  et  on  sait  bien  ce  que  c'est  que  voler  la  France. 

As  a  matter  of  fact  the  buyers  were  frightened  off  and  all  the  pictures 
except  those  of  Derain  went  for  little.  Poor  Juan  Gris  whose  pictures 
went  for  very  little  tried  to  be  grave.  They  after  all  did  bring  an  honour- 
able price,  he  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  but  he  was  sad. 

Fortunately  Kahnweiler,  who  had  not  fought  against  France,  was  al- 
lowed to  come  back  the  next  year.  The  others  no  longer  needed  him 
but  Juan  needed  him  desperately  and  Kahnweiler's  loyalty  and  gener- 
osity to  Juan  Gris  all  those  hard  years  can  only  be  matched  by  Juan's 
loyalty  and  generosity  when  at  last  just  before  his  death  and  he  had  be- 
come famous  tempting  offers  from  other  dealers  were  made  to  him. 

Kahnweiler  coming  to  Paris  and  taking  on  commercially  the  cause  of 
the  cubists  made  a  great  difference  to  all  of  them.  Their  present  and 
future  were  secure. 

The  Picassos  moved  from  the  old  studio  in  the  rue  Ravignan  to  an 
apartment  in  the  boulevard  Clichy.  Fernande  began  to  buy  furniture 
and  have  a  servant  and  the  servant  of  course  made  a  souffle.  It  was  a  nice 
apartment  with  lots  of  sunshine.  On  the  whole  however  Fernande  was 


92  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

not  quite  as  happy  as  she  had  been.  There  were  a  great  many  people 
there  and  even  afternoon  tea.  Braque  was  there  a  great  deal,  it  was  the 
height  of  the  intimacy  between  Braque  and  Picasso,  it  was  at  that  time 
they  first  began  to  put  musical  instruments  into  their  pictures.  It-  was 
also  the  beginning  of  Picasso's  making  constructions.  He  made  still  lifes 
of  objects  and  photographed  them.  He  made  paper  constructions  later, 
he  gave  one  of  these  to  Gertrude  Stein.  It  is  perhaps  the  only  one  left  in 
existence. 

This  was  also  the  time  when  I  first  heard  of  Poiret.  He  had  a  house- 
boat on  the  Seine  and  he  had  given  a  party  on  it  and  he  had  invited 
Pablo  and  Fernande.  He  gave  Fernande  a  handsome  rose-coloured  scarf 
with  gold  fringe  and  he  also  gave  her  a  spun  glass  fantaisie  to  put  on  a 
hat,  an  entirely  new  idea  in  those  days.  This  she  gave  to  me  and  I  wore 
it  on  a  little  straw  pointed  cap  for  years  after.  I  may  even  have  it  now. 

Then  there  was  the  youngest  of  the  cubists.  I  never  knew  his  name. 
He  was  doing  his  military  service  and  was  destined  for  diplomacy.  How 
he  drifted  in  and  whether  he  painted  I  do  not  know.  All  I  know  is  that 
he  was  known  as  the  youngest  of  the  cubists. 

Fernande  had  at  this  time  a  new  friend  of  whom  she  often  spoke  to 
me.  This  was  Eve  who  was  living  with  Marcoussis.  And  one  evening  all 
four  of  them  came  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus,  Pablo,  Fernande,  Marcoussis 
and  Eve.  It  was  the  only  time  we  ever  saw  Martoussis  until  many  many 
years  later. 

I  could  perfectly  understand  Fernande's  liking  for  Eve.  As  I  said  Fer- 
nande's  great  heroine  was  Evelyn  Thaw,  small  and  negative.  Here  was 
a  little  french  Evelyn  Thaw,  small  and  perfect. 

Not  long  after  this  Picasso  came  one  day  and  told  Gertrude  Stein  that 
he  had  decided  to  take  an  atelier  in  the  rue  Ravignan.  He  could  work 
better  there.  He  could  not  get  back  his  old  one  but  he  took  one  on  the 
lower  floor.  One  day  we  went  to  see  him  there.  He  was  not  in  and 
Gertrude  Stein  as  a  joke  left  her  visiting  card.  In  a  few  days  we  went 
again  and  Picasso  was  at  work  on  a  picture  on  which  was  written  ma 
jolie  and  at  the  lower  corner  painted  in  was  Gertrude  Stein's  visiting 
card.  As  we  went  away  Gertrude  Stein  said,  Fernande  is  certainly  not 
ma  jolie,  I  wonder  who  it  is.  In  a  few  days  we  knew.  Pablo  had  gone  off 
with  Eve. 

This  was  in  the  spring.  They  all  had  the  habit  of  going  to  Ceret  near 
Perpignan  for  the  summer  probably  on  account  of  Manolo,  and  they  all 


1907-1914  93 

in  spite  of  everything  went  there  again.  Fernande  was  there  with  the 
Pichots  and  Eve  was  there  with  Pablo.  There  were  some  redoubtable 
battles  and  then  everybody  came  back  to  Paris. 

One  evening,  we  too  had  come  back,  Picasso  came  in.  He  and  Ger- 
trude Stein  had  a  long  talk  alone.  It  was  Pablo,  she  said  when  she  came 
in  from  having  bade  him  goodbye,  and  he  said  a  marvellous  thing  about 
Fernande,  he  said  her  beauty  always  held  him  but  he  could  not  stand 
any  of  her  little  ways.  She  further  added  that  Pablo  and  Eve  were  now 
settled  on  the  boulevard  Raspail  and  we  would  go  and  see  them 
to-morrow. 

In  the  meanwhile  Gertrude  Stein  had  received  a  letter  from  Fernande, 
very  dignified,  written  with  the  reticence  of  a  frenchwoman.  She  said 
that  she  wished  to  tell  Gertrude  Stein  that  she  understood  perfectly  that 
the  friendship  had  always  been  with  Pablo  and  that  although  Gertrude 
had  always  shown  her  every  mark  of  sympathy  and  affection  now  that 
she  and  Pablo  were  separated,  it  was  naturally  impossible  that  in  the 
future  there  should  be  any  intercourse  between  them  because  the  friend- 
ship having  been  with  Pablo  there  could  of  course  be  no  question  of  a 
choice.  That  she  would  always  remember  their  intercourse  with  pleasure 
and  that  she  would  permit  herself,  if  ever  she  were  in  need,  to  throw 
herself  upon  Gertrude's  generosity. 

And  so  Picasso  left  Montmartre  never  to  return. 

When  I  first  came  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  Gertrude  Stein  was  correcting 
the  proofs  of  Three  Lives.  I  was  soon  helping  her  with  this  and  before 
very  long  the  book  was  published.  I  asked  her  .to  let  me  subscribe  to 
%Romeike's  clipping  bureau,  the  advertisement  for  Romeike  in  the  San 
Francisco  Argonaut  having  been  one  of  the  romances  of  my  childhood. 
Soon  the  clippings  began  to  come  in. 

It  is  rather  astonishing  the  number  of  newspapers  that  noticed  this 
book,  printed  privately  and  by  a  perfectly  unknown  person.  The  notice 
that  pleased  Gertrude  Stein  most  was  in  the  Kansas  City  Star.  She  often 
asked  then  and  in  later  years  who  it  was  who  might  have  written  it  but 
she  never  found  out.  It  was  a  very  sympathetic  and  a  very  understanding 
review.  Later  on  when  she  was  discouraged  by  what  others  said  she 
would  refer  to  it  as  having  given  her  at  that  time  great  comfort.  She 
says  in  Composition  and  Explanation,  when  you  write  a  thing  it  is  per- 
fectly clear  and  then  you  begin  to  be  doubtful  about  it,  but  then  you  read 
it  again  and  you  lose  yourself  in  it  again  as  when  you  wrote  it. 


94  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

The  other  thing  in  connection  with  this  her  first  book  that  gave  her 
pleasure  was  a  very  enthusiastic  note  from  H.  G.  Wells.  She  kept  this 
for  years  apart,  it  had  meant  so  much  to  her.  She  wrote  to  him  at  that 
time  and  they  were  often  to  meet  but  as  it  happened  they  never  did.  And 
they  are  not  likely  to  now. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  at  that  time  writing  The  Making  of  Americans. 
It  had  changed  from  being  a  history  of  a  family  to  being  a  history  of 
everybody  the  family  knew  and  then  it  became  the  history  of  every  kind 
and  of  every  individual  human  being.  But  in  spite  of  all  this  there  was  a 
hero  and  he  was  to  die.  The  day  he  died  I  met  Gertrude  Stein  at  Mil- 
dred Aldrich's  apartment.  Mildred  was  very  fond  of  Gertrude  Stein  and 
took  a  deep  interest  in  the  book's  ending.  It  was  over  a  thousand  pages 
long  and  I  was  typewriting  it. 

I  always  say  that  you  cannot  tell  what  a  picture  really  is  or  what  an 
object  really  is  until  you  dust  it  every  day  and  you  cannot  tell  what  a 
book  is  until  you  type  it  or  proof-read  it.  It  then  does  something  to  you 
that  only  reading  never  can  do.  A  good  many  years  later  Jane  Heap  said 
that  she  had  never  appreciated  the  quality  of  Gertrude  Stein's  work  until 
she  proof-read  it. 

When  The  Making  of  Americans  was  finished,  Gertrude  Stein  began 
another  which  also  was  to  be  long  and  which  she  called  A  Long  Gay 
Book  but  it  did  not  turn  out  to  be  long,  neither  that  nor  one  begun  at 
the  same  time  Many  Many  Women  because  they  were  both  interrupted 
by  portrait  writing.  This  is  how  portrait  writing  began. 

Helene  used  to  stay  at  home  with  her  husband  Sunday  evening,  that 
is  to  say  she  was  always  willing  to  come  but  we  often  told  her  not  to 
bother.  I  like  cooking,  I  am  an  extremely  good  five-minute  cook,  and 
beside,  Gertrude  Stein  liked  from  time  to  time  to  have  me  make  amer- 
ican  dishes.  One  Sunday  evening  I  was  very  busy  preparing  one  of  these 
and  then  I  called  Gertrude  Stein  to  come  in  from  the  atelier  for  supper. 
She  came  in  much  excited  and  would  not  sit  down.  Here  I  want  to 
show  you  something,  she  said.  No  I  said  it  has  to  be  eaten  hot.  No,  she 
said,  you  have  to  see  this  first.  Gertrude  Stein  never  likes  her  food  hot 
and  I  do  like  mine  hot,  we  never  agree  about  this.  She  admits  that  one 
can  wait  to  cool  it  but  one  cannot  heat  it  once  it  is  on  a  plate  so  it  is 
agreed  that  I  have  it  served  as  hot  as  I  like.  In  spite  of  my  protests  and 
the  food  cooling  I  had  to  read.  I  can  still  see  the  little  tiny  pages  of  the 
note-book  written  forward  and  back.  It  was  the  portrait  called  Ada,  the 


1907-1914  95 

first  in  Geography  and  Plays.  I  began  it  and  I  thought  she  was  making 
fun  of  me  and  I  protested,  she  says  I  protest  now  about  my  autobiog- 
raphy. Finally  I  read  it  all  and  was  terribly  pleased  with  it.  And  then 
we  ate  our  supper. 

This  was  the  beginning  of  the  long  series  of  portraits.  She  has  written 
portraits  of  practically  everybody  she  has  known,  and  written  them  in 
all  manners  and  in  all  styles. 

Ada  was  followed  by  portraits  of  Matisse  and  Picasso,  and  Stieglitz 
who  was  much  interested  in  them  and  in  Gertrude  Stein  printed  them 
in  a  special  number  of  Camera  Work. 

She  then  began  to  do  short  portraits  of  everybody  who  came  in  and  out. 
She  did  one  of  Arthur  Frost,  the  son  of  A.  B.  Frost  the  american  illus- 
trator. Frost  was  a  Matisse  pupil  and  his  pride  when  he  read  his  portrait 
and  found  that  it  was  three  full  pages  longer  than  either  the  portrait  of 
Matisse  or  the  portrait  of  Picasso  was  something  to  hear. 

A.  B.  Frost  complained  to  Pat  Bruce  who  had  led  Frost  to  Matisse  that 
it  was  a  pity  that  Arthur  could  not  see  his  way  to  becoming  a  conven- 
tional artist  and  so  earning  fame  and  money.  You  can  lead  a  horse  to 
water  but  you  cannot  make  him  drink  said  Pat  Bruce.  Most  horses 
drink,  Mr.  Bruce,  said  A.  B.  Frost. 

Bruce,  Patrick  Henry  Bruce,  was  one  of  the  early  and  most  ardent 
Matisse  pupils  and  soon  he  made  little  Matisses,  but  he  was  not  happy. 
In  explaining  his  unhappiness  he  told  Gertrude  Stein,  they  talk  about 
the  sorrows  of  great  artists,  the  tragic  unhappiness  of  great  artists  but 
after  all  they  are  great  artists.  A  little  artist  has  all  the  tragic  unhappiness 
and  the  sorrows  of  a  great  artist  and  he  is  not  a  great  artist. 

She  did  portraits  of  Nadelman,  also  of  the  proteges  of  the  sculptress 
Mrs.  Whitney,  Lee  and  Russell  also  of  Harry  Phelan  Gibb,  her  first  and 
best  english  friend.  She  did  portraits  of  Manguin  and  Roche  and  Purr- 
mann  and  David  Edstrom,  the  fat  Swedish  sculptor  who  married  the 
head  of  the  Christian  Science  Church  in  Paris  and  destroyed  her.  And 
Brenner,  Brenner  the  sculptor  who  never  finished  anything.  He  had  an 
admirable  technique  and  a  great  many  obsessions  which  kept  him  from 
work.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  fond  of  him  and  still  is.  She  once  posed 
to  him  for  weeks  and  he  did  a  fragmentary  portrait  of  her  that  is  very 
fine.  He  and  Cody  later  published  some  numbers  of  a  little  review  called 
Soil  and  they  were  among  the  very  early  ones  to  print  something  of 
Gertrude  Stein.  The  only  little  magazine  that  preceded  it  was  one  called 


96  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Rogue,  printed  by  Allan  Norton  and  which  printed  her  description  of 
the  Galerie  Lafayette.  This  was  of  course  all  much  later  and  happened 
through  Carl  Van  Vechten. 

She  also  did  portraits  of  Miss  Etta  Cone  and  her  sister  Doctor  Claribel 
Cone.  She  also  did  portraits  of  Miss  Mars  and  Miss  Squires  under  the 
title  of  Miss  Furr  and  Miss  Skeene.  There  were  portraits  of  Mildred  Al- 
drich  and  her  sister.  Everybody  was  given  their  portrait  to  read  and 
they  were  all  pleased  and  it  was  all  very  amusing.  All  this  occupied  a 
great  deal  of  that  winter  and  then  we  went  to  Spain. 

In  Spain  Gertrude  Stein  began  to  write  the  things  that  led  to  Tender 

Buttons. 

* 

I  liked  Spain  immensely.  We  went  several  times  to  Spain  and  I  always 
liked  it  more  and  more.  Gertrude  Stein  says  that  I  am  impartial  on  every 
subject  except  that  of  Spain  and  Spaniards. 

We  went  straight  to  Avila  and  I  immediately  lost  my  heart  to  Avila, 
I  must  stay  in  Avila  forever  I  insisted.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  upset, 
Avila  was  alright  but,  she  insisted,  she  needed  Paris.  I  felt  that  I  needed 
nothing  but  Avila.  We  were  both  very  violent  about  it.  We  did  however 
stay  there  for  ten  days  and  as  Saint  Theresa  was  a  heroine  of  Gertrude 
Stein's  youth  we  thoroughly  enjoyed  it.  In  the  opera  Four  Saints  written 
a  few  years  ago  she  describes  the  landscape  that  so  profoundly  moved 
me. 

We  went  on  to  Madrid  and  there  we  met  Georgiana  King  of  Bryn 
Mawr,  an  old  friend  of  Gertrude  Stein  from  Baltimore  days.  Georgiana 
King  wrote  some  of  the  most  interesting  of  the  early  criticisms  of  Three 
Lives.  She  was  then  re-editing  Street  on  the  cathedrals  of  Spain  and  in 
connection  with  this  she  had  wandered  all  over  Spain.  She  gave  us  a 
great  deal  of  very  good  advice. 

In  these  days  Gertrude  Stein  wore  a  brown  corduroy  suit,  jacket  and 
skirt,  a  small  straw  cap,  always  crocheted  for  her  b,y  a  woman  in  Fiesole, 
sandals,  and  she  often  carried  a  cane.  That  summer  the  head  of  the  cane 
was  of  amber.  It  is  more  or  less  this  costume  without  the  cap  and  the  cane 
that  Picasso  has  painted  in  his  portrait  of  her.  This  costume  was  ideal  for 
Spain,  they  all  thought  of  her  as  belonging  to  some  religious  order  and 
we  were  always  treated  with  the  most  absolute  respect.  I  remember  that 
once  a  nun  was  showing  us  the  treasures  in  a  convent  church  in  Toledo. 
We  were  near  the  steps  of  the  altar.  All  of  a  sudden  there  was  a  crash, 
Gertrude  Stein  had  dropped  her  cane.  The  nun  paled,  the  worshippers 


1907-1914  97 

startled.  Gertrude  Stein  picked  up  her  cane  and  turning  to  the  fright- 
ened nun  said  reassuringly,  no  it  is  not  broken. 

I  used  in  those  days  of  Spanish  travelling  to  wear  what  I  was  wont  to 
call  my  Spanish  disguise.  I  always  wore  a  black  silk  coat,  black  gloves 
and  a  black  hat,  the  only  pleasure  I  allowed  myself  were  lovely  artificial 
flowers  on  my  hat.  These  always  enormously  interested  the  peasant 
women  and  they  used  to  very  courteously  ask  my  permission  to  touch 
them,  to  realise  for  themselves  that  they  were  artificial. 

We  went  to  Cuenca  that  summer,  Harry  Gibb  the  english  painter  had 
told  us  about  it.  Harry  Gibb  is  a  strange  case  of  a  man  who  foresaw 
everything.  He  had  been  a  successful  animal  painter  in  his  youth  in 
England,  he  came  from  the  north  of  England,  he  had  married  and  gone 
to  Germany,  there  he  had  become  dissatisfied  with  what  he  had  been 
doing  and  heard  about  the  new  school  of  painting  in  Paris.  He  came  to 
Paris  and  was  immediately  influenced  by  Matisse.  He  then  became  inter- 
ested in  Picasso  and  he  did  some  very  remarkable  painting  under  their 
combined  influences.  Then  all  this  together  threw  him  into  something 
else  something  that  fairly  completely  achieved  what  the  surrealists  after 
the  war  tried  to  do.  The  only  thing  he  lacked  is  what  the  french  call 
saveur,  what  may  be  called  the  graciousness  of  a  picture.  Because  of  this 
lack  it  was  impossible  for  him  to  find  a  french  audience.  Naturally  in 
those  days  there  was  no  english  audience.  Harry  Gibb  fell  on  bad  days. 
He  was  always  falling  upon  bad  days.  He  and  his  wife  Bridget  one  of 
the  pleasantest  of  the  wives  of  a  genius  I  have  sat  with  were  full  of  cour- 
age and  they  faced  everything  admirably,  but  there  were  always  very 
difficult  days.  And  then  things  were  a  little  better.  He  found  a  couple 
of  patrons  who  believed  in  him  and  it  was  at  this  time,  1912-1913,  that 
he  went  to  Dublin  and  had  rather  an  epoch-making  show  of  his  pictures 
there.  It  was  at  that  time  that  he  took  with  him  several  copies  of  the  por- 
trait of  Mabel  Dodge  at  the  Villa  Curonia,  Mabel  Dodge  had  had  it 
printed  in  Florence,  and  it  was  then  that  the  Dublin  writers  in  the  cafes 
heard  Gertrude  Stein  read  aloud.  Doctor  Gogarty,  Harry  Gibb's  host 
and  admirer,  loved  to  read  it  aloud  himself  and  have  others  read  it 
aloud. 

After  that  there  was  the  war  and  eclipse  for  poor  Harry,  and  since 
then  a  long  sad  struggle.  He  has  had  his  ups  and  downs,  more  downs 
than  up,  but  only  recently  there  was  a  new  turn  of  the  wheel.  Gertrude 
Stein  who  loved  them  both  dearly  always  was  convinced  that  the  two 


98  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

painters  of  her  generation  who  would  be  discovered  after  they  were 
dead,  they  being  predestined  to  a  life  of  tragedy,  were  Juan  Gris  and 
Harry  Gibb.  Juan  Gris  dead  these  five  years  is  beginning  to  come  into 
his  own.  Harry  Gibb  still  alive  is  still  unknown.  Gertrude  Stein  and 
Harry  Gibb  have  always  been  very  loyal  and  very  loving  friends.  One  of 
the  very  good  early  portraits  she  did  she  did  of  him,  it  was  printed  in  the 
Oxford  Review  and  then  in  Geography  and  Plays. 

So  Harry  Gibb  told  us  about  Cuenca  and  we  went  on  a  little  railroad 
that  turned  around  curves  and  ended  in  the  middle  of  nowhere  and 
there  was  Cuenca. 

We  delighted  in  Cuenca  and  the  population  of  Cuenca  delighted  in  us. 
It  delighted  in  us  so  much  that  it  was  getting  uncomfortable.  Then  one 
day  when  we  were  out  walking,  all  of  a  sudden  the  population,  particu- 
larly the  children,  kept  their  distance.  Soon  a  uniformed  man  came  up 
and  saluting  said  that  he  was  a  policeman  of  the  town  and  that  the 
governor  of  the  province  had  detailed  him  to  always  hover  in  the  dis- 
tance as  we  went  about  the  country  to  prevent  our  being  annoyed  by  the 
population  and  that  he  hoped  that  this  would  not  inconvenience  us.  It 
did  not,  he  was  charming  and  he  took  us  to  lovely  places  in  the  country 
where  we  could  not  very  well  have  gone  by  ourselves.  Such  was  Spain 
in  the  old  days. 

We  finally  came  back  to  Madrid  again  and  there  we  discovered  the 
Argentina  and  bull-fights.  The  young  journalists  of  Madrid  had  just  dis- 
covered her.  We  happened  upon  her  in  a  music  hall,  we  went  to  them 
to  see  Spanish  dancing,  and  after  we  saw  her  the  first  time  we  went  every 
afternoon  and  every  evening.  We  went  to  the  bull-fights.  At  first  they 
upset  me  and  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  tell  me,  now  look,  now  don't  look, 
until  finally  I  was  able  to  look  all  the  time. 

We  finally  came  to  Granada  and  stayed  there  for  some  time  and  there 
Gertrude  Stein  worked  terrifically.  She  was  always  very  fond  of  Granada. 
It  was  there  she  had  her  first  experience  of  Spain  when  still  at  college 
just  after  the  spanish-american  war  when  she  and  her  brother  went 
through  Spain.  They  had  a  delightful  time  and  she  always  tells  of  sitting 
in  the  dining  room  talking  to  a  bostonian  and  his  daughter  when  sud- 
denly there  was  a  terrific  noise,  the  hee-haw  of  a  donkey.  What  is  it,  said 
the  young  bostonian  trembling.  Ah,  said  the  father,  it  is  the  last  sigh  of 
the  Moor. 

We  enjoyed  Granada,  we  met  many  amusing  people  english  and  span- 


1907-1914  99 

ish  and  it  was  there  and  at  that  time  that  Gertrude  Stein's  style  gradually 
changed.  She  says  hitherto  she  had  been  interested  only  in  the  insides  of 
people,  their  character  and  what  went  on  inside  them,  it  was  during 
that  summer  that  she  first  felt  a  desire  to  express  the  rhythm  of  the  vis- 
ible world. 

It  was  a  long  tormenting  process,  she  looked,  listened  and  described. 
She  always  was,  she  always  is,  tormented  by  the  problem  of  the  external 
and  the  internal.  One  of  the  things  that  always  worries  her  about  paint- 
ing is  the  difficulty  that  the  artist  feels  and  which  sends  him  to  painting 
still  lifes,  that  after  all  the  human  being  essentially  is  not  paintable.  Once 
again  and  very  recently  she  has  thought  that  a  painter  has  added  some- 
thing to  the  solution  of  this  problem.  She  is  interested  in  Picabia  in 
whom  hitherto  she  has  never  been  interested  because  he  at  least  knows 
that  if  you  do  not  solve  your  painting  problem  in  painting  human  beings 
you  do  not  solve  it  at  all.  There  is  also  a  follower  of  Picabia's,  who  is 
facing  the  problem,  but  will  he  solve  it.  Perhaps  not.  Well  anyway  it  is 
that  of  which  she  is  always  talking  and  now  her  own  long  struggle  with 
it  was  to  begin. 

These  were  the  days  in  which  she  wrote  Susie  Asado  and  Preciocilla 
and  Gypsies  in  Spain.  She  experimented  with  everything  in  trying  to 
describe.  She  tried  a  bit  inventing  words  but  she  soon  gave  that  up. 
The  english  language  was  her  medium  and  with  the  english  language 
the  task  was  to  be  achieved,  the  problem  solved.  The  use  of  fabricated 
words  offended  her,  it  was  an  escape  into  imitative  emotionalism. 

No,  she  stayed  with  her  task,  although  after  the  return  to  Paris  she 
described  objects,  she  described  rooms  and  objects,  which  joined  with 
her  first  experiments  done  in  Spain,  made  the  volume  Tender  Buttons. 

She  always  however  made  her  chief  study  people  and  therefore  the 
never  ending  series  of  portraits. 

We  came  back  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  as  usual. 

One  of  the  people  who  had  impressed  me  very  much  when  I  first  came 
to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  was  Mildred  Aldrich. 

Mildred  Aldrich  was  then  in  her  early  fifties,  a  stout  vigorous  woman 
with  a  George  Washington  face,  white  hair  and  admirably  clean  fresh 
clothes  and  gloves.  A  very  striking  figure  and  a  very  satisfying  one  in 
the  crowd  of  mixed  nationalities.  She  was  indeed  one  of  whom  Picasso 
could  say  and  did  say,  c'est  elle  qui  fera  la  gloire  de  PAmerique.  She 
made  one  very  satisfied  with  one's  country,  which  had  produced  her. 


TOO  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Her  sister  having  left  for  America  she  lived  alone  on  the  top  floor  of 
a  building  on  the  corner  of  the  boulevard  Raspail  and  the  half  street, 
rue  Boissonade.  There  she  had  at  the  window  an  enormous  cage  filled 
with  canaries.  We  always  thought  it  was  because  she  loved  canaries. 
Not  at  all.  A  friend  had  once  left  her  a  canary  in  a  cage  to  take  care  of 
during  her  absence.  Mildred  as  she  did  everything  else,  took  excellent 
care  of  the  canary  in  the  cage.  Some  friend  seeing  this  and  naturally  con- 
cluding that  Mildred  was  fond  of  canaries  gave  her  another  canary. 
Mildred  of  course  took  excellent  care  of  both  canaries  and  so  the  canaries 
increased  and  the  size  of  the  cage  grew  until  in  1914  she  moved  to  Huiry 
to  the  Hilltop  on  the  Marne  and  gave  her  canaries  away.  Her  excuse  was 
that  in  the  country  cats  would  eat  the  canaries.  But  her  real  reason  she 
once  told  me  was  that  she  really  could  not  bear  canaries. 

Mildred  was  an  excellent  housekeeper.  I  was  very  surprised,  having 
had  a  very  different  impression  of  her,  going  up  to  see  her  one  after- 
noon, finding  her  mending  her  linen  and  doing  it  beautifully. 

Mildred  adored  cablegrams,  she  adored  being  hard  up,  or  rather  she 
adored  spending  money  and  as  her  earning  capacity  although  great  was 
limited,  Mildred  was  chronically  hard  up.  In  those  days  she  was  making 
contracts  to  put  Maeterlinck's  Blue  Bird  on  the  american  stage.  The  ar- 
rangements demanded  endless  cablegrams,  and  my  early  memories  of 
Mildred  were  of  her  coming  to  our  little  apartment  in  the  rue  Notre- 
Dame-des-Champs  late  in  the  evening  and  asking  me  to  lend  her  the 
money  for  a  long  cable.  A  few  days  later  the  money  was  returned  with 
a  lovely  azalea  worth  five  times  the  money.  No  wonder  she  was  always 
hard  up.  But  everybody  listened  to  her.  No  one  in  the  world  could  tell 
stories  like  Mildred.  I  can  still  see  her  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  sitting  in  one 
of  the  big  armchairs  and  gradually  the  audience  increasing  around  her 
as  she  talked. 

She  was  very  fond  of  Gertrude  Stein,  very  interested  in  her  work,  en- 
thusiastic about  Three  Lives,  deeply  impressed  but  slightly  troubled  by 
The  Making  of  Americans,  quite  upset  by  Tender  Buttons,  but  always 
loyal  and  convinced  that  if  Gertrude  Stein  did  it  it  had  something  in  it 
that  was  worth  while. 

Her  joy  and  pride  when  in  nineteen  twenty-six  Gertrude  Stein  gave 
her  lecture  at  Cambridge  and  Oxford  was  touching.  Gertrude  Stein  must 
come  out  and  read  it  to  her  before  leaving.  Gertrude  Stein  did,  much  to 
their  mutual  pleasure. 


1907-1914  101 

Mildred  Aldrich  liked  Picasso  and  even  liked  Matisse,  that  is  per- 
sonally, but  she  was  troubled.  One  day  she  said  to  me,  Alice,  tell  me  is 
it  alright,  are  they  really  alright,  I  know  Gertrude  thinks  so  and  Gertrude 
knows,  but  really  is  it  not  all  fumisterie,  is  it  not  all  false. 

In  spite  of  these  occasional  doubtful  days  Mildred  Aldrich  liked  it  all. 
She  liked  coming  herself  and  she  liked  bringing  other  people.  She 
brought  a  great  many.  It  was  she  who  brought  Henry  McBride  who  was 
then  writing  on  the  New  York  Sun.  It  was  Henry  McBride  who  used  to 
keep  Gertrude  Stein's  name  before  the  public  all  those  tormented  years. 
Laugh  if  you  like,  he  used  to  say  to  her  detractors,  but  laugh  with  and 
not  at  her,  in  that  way  you  will  enjoy  it  all  much  better. 

Henry  McBride  did  not  believe  in  worldly  success.  It  ruins  you,  it 
ruins  you,  he  used  to  say.  But  Henry,  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  answer 
dolefully,  don't  you  think  I  will  ever  have  any  success,  I  would  like  to 
have  a  little,  you  know.  Think  of  my  unpublished  manuscripts.  But 
Henry  McBride  was  firm,  the  best  that  I  can  wish  you,  he  always  said, 
is  to  have  no  success.  It  is  the  only  good  thing.  He  was  firm  about  that. 

He  was  however  enormously  pleased  when  Mildred  was  successful 
and  he  now  says  he  thinks  the  time  has  come  when  Gertrude  Stein  could 
indulge  in  a  little. success.  He  does  not  think  that  now  it  would  hurt  her. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Roger  Fry  first  came  to  the  house.  He 
brought  Clive  Bell  and  Mrs.  Clive  Bell  and  later  there  were  many  others. 
In  these  days  Clive  Bell  went  along  with  the  other  two.  He  was  rather 
complainful  that  his  wife  and  Roger  Fry  took  too  much  interest  in  capital 
works  of  art.  He  was  quite  funny  about  it.  He  was  very  amusing,  later 
when  he  became  a  real  art  critic  he  was  less  so. 

Roger  Fry  was  always  charming,  charming  as  a  guest  and  charming 
as  a  host;  later  when  we  went  to  London  we  spent  a  day  with  him  in  the 
country. 

He  was  filled  with  excitement  at  the  sight  of  the  portrait  of  Gertrude 
Stein  by  Picasso.  He  wrote  an  article  about  it  in  the  Burlington  Review 
and  illustrated  it  by  two  photographs  side  by  side,  one  the  photograph  of 
this  portrait  and  the  other  a  photograph  of  a  portrait  by  Raphael.  He 
insisted  that  these  two  pictures  were  equal  in  value.  He  brought  endless 
people  to  the  house.  Very  soon  there  were  throngs  of  englishmen, 
Augustus  John  and  Lamb,  Augustus  John  amazing  looking  and  not  too 
sober,  Lamb  rather  strange  and  attractive. 

Jt  was  about  this  time  that  Roger  Fry  had  many  young  disciples. 


102  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Among  them  was  Wyndham  Lewis,  Wyndham  Lewis,  tall  and  thin, 
looked  rather  like  a  young  frenchman  on  the  rise,  perhaps  because  his 
feet  were  very  french,  or  at  least  his  shoes.  He  used  to  come  and  sit  and 
measure  pictures.  I  can  not  say  that  he  actually  measured  with  a  meas- 
uring-rod but  he  gave  all  the  effect  of  being  in  the  act  of  taking  very 
careful  measurement  of  the  canvas,  the  lines  within  the  canvas  and 
everything  that  might  be  of  use.  Gertrude  Stein  rather  liked  him.  She 
particularly  liked  him  one  day  when  he  came  and  told  all  about  his 
quarrel  with  Roger  Fry.  Roger  Fry  had  come  in  not  many  days  before 
and  had  already  told  all  about  it.  They  told  exactly  the  same  story  only 
it  was  different,  very  different. 

This  was  about  the  time  too  that  Prichard  o£  the  Museum  of  Fine 
Arts,  Boston  and  later  of  the  Kensington  Museum  began  coming. 
Prichard  brought  a  great  many  young  Oxford  men.  They  were  very  nice 
in  the  room,  and  they  thought  Picasso  wonderful.  They  felt  and  indeed 
in  a  way  it  was  true  that  he  had  a  halo.  With  these  Oxford  men  came 
Thomas  Whittemore  of  Tufts  College.  He  was  fresh  and  engaging  and 
later  to  Gertrude  Stein's  great  delight  he  one  day  said,  all  blue  is  precious. 

Everybody  brought  somebody.  As  I  said  the  character  of  the  Saturday 
evenings  was  gradually  changing,  that  is  to  say,  the  kind  of  people  who 
came  had  changed.  Somebody  brought  the  Infanta  Eulalia  and  brought 
her  several  times.  She  was  delighted  and  with  the  flattering  memory 
of  royalty  she  always  remembered  my  name  even  some  years  after  when 
we  met  quite  by  accident  in  the  place  Vendome.  When  she  first  came 
into  the  room  she  was  a  little  frightened.  It  seemed  a  strange  place  but 
gradually  she  liked  it  very  much. 

Lady  Cunard  brought  her  daughter  Nancy,  then  a  little  girl,  and  very 
solemnly  bade  her  never  forget  the  visit. 

Who  else  came.  There  were  so  many.  The  bavarian  minister  brought 
quantities  of  people.  Jacques-Emile  Blanche  brought  delightful  people, 
so  did  Alphonse  Kann.  There  was  Lady  Otoline  Morrell  looking  like  a 
marvellous  feminine  version  of  Disraeli  and  tall  and  strange  shyly  hesi- 
tating at  the  door.  There  was  a  dutch  near  royalty  who  was  left  by  her 
escort  who  had  to  go  and  find  a  cab  and  she  looked  during  this  short 
interval  badly  frightened. 

There  was  a  roumanian  princess,  and  her  cabman  grew  impatient. 
Helene  came  in  to  announce  violently  that  the  cabman  would  not  wait. 


1907-1914  103 

And  then  after  a  violent  knock,  the  cabman  himself  announced  that  he 
would  not  wait. 

It  was  an  endless  variety.  And  everybody  came  and  no  one  made  any 
difference.  Gertrude  Stein  sat  peacefully  in  a  chair  and  those  who  could 
did  the  same,  the  rest  stood.  There  were  the  friends  who  sat  around  the 
stove  and  talked  and  there  were  the  endless  strangers  who  came  and 
went.  My  memory  of  it  is  very  vivid. 

As  I  say  everybody  brought  people.  William  Cook  brought  a  great 
many  from  Chicago,  very  wealthy  stout  ladies  and  equally  wealthy  tall 
good-looking  thin  ones.  That  summer  having  found  the  Balearic  Islands 
on  the  map,  we  went  to  the  island  of  Mallorca  and  on  the  little  boat 
going  over  was  Cook.  He  too  had  found  it  on  the  map.  We  stayed  only 
a  little  while  but  he  settled  down  for  the  summer,  and  then  later  he  went 
back  and  was  the  solitary  first  of  all  the  big  crowd  of  afnericans  who  have 
discovered  Palma  since.  We  all  went  back  again  during  the  war. 

It  was  during  this  summer  that  Picasso  gave  us  a  letter  to  a  friend  of 
his  youth  one  Raventos  in  Barcelona.  But  does  he  talk  french,  asked 
Gertrude  Stein,  Pablo  giggled,  better  than  you  do  Gertrude,  he  answered. 

Raventos  gave  us  a  good  time,  he  and  a  descendant  of  de  Soto  took  us 
about  for  two  long  days,  the  days  were  long  because  so  much  of  them 
were  night.  They  had  an  automobile,  even  in  those  early  days,  and  they 
took  us  up  into  the  hills  to  see  early  churches.  We  would  rush  up  a  hill 
and  then  happily  come  down  a  little  slower  and  every  two  hours  or  so 
we  ate  a  dinner.  When  we  finally  came  back  to  Barcelona  about  ten 
o'clock  in  the  evening  they  said,  now  we  will  have  an  aperitif  and  then 
we  will  eat  dinner.  It  was  exhausting  eating  so  many  dinners  but  we 
enjoyed  ourselves. 

Later  on  much  later  on  indeed  only  a  few  years  ago  Picasso  introduced 
us  to  another  friend  of  his  youth. 

Sabartes  and  he  have  known  each  other  ever  since  they  were  fifteen 
years  old  but  as  Sabartes  had  disappeared  into  South  America,  Monte- 
video, Uruguay,  before  Gertrude  Stein  met  Picasso,  she  had  never  heard 
of  him.  One  day  a  few  years  ago  Picasso  sent  word  that  he  was  bringing 
Sabartes  to  the  house.  Sabartes,  in  Uruguay,  had  read  some  things  of 
Gertrude  Stein  in  various  magazines  and  he  hod  conceived  a  great  ad- 
miration for  her  work.  It  never  occurred  to  him  that  Picasso  would  know 
her.  Having  come  back  for  the  first  time  in  all  these  years  to  Paris  he 


104  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

went  to  see  Picasso  and  he  told  him  about  this  Gertrude  Stein.  But  she 
is  my  only  friend,  said  Picasso,  it  is  the  only  home  I  go  to.  Take  me,  said 
Sabartes,  and  so  they  came. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  Spaniards  are  natural  friends  and  this  time  too  the 
friendship  grew. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  the  futurists,  the  kalian  futurists,  had  their 
big  show  in  Paris  and  it  made  a  great  deal  of  noise.  Everybody  was  ex- 
cited and  this  show  being  given  in  a  very  well  known  gallery  everybody 
went.  Jacques-Emile  Blanche  was  terribly  upset  by  it.  We  found  him 
wandering  tremblingly  in  the  garden  of  the  Tuileries  and  he  said,  it 
looks  alright  but  is  it.  No  it  isn't,  said  Gertude  Stein.  You  do  me  good, 
said  Jacques-Emile  Blanche. 

The  futurists  all  of  them  led  by  Severini  thronged  around  Picasso.  He 
brought  them  all  to  the  house.  Marinetti  came  by  himself  later  as  I  re- 
member. In  any  case  everybody  found  the  futurists  very  dull. 

Epstein  the  sculptor  came  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus  one  evening.  When 
Gertrude  Stein  first  came  to  Paris  in  nineteen  hundred  and  four,  Epstein 
was  a  thin  rather  beautiful  rather  melancholy  ghost  who  used  to  slip  in 
and  out  among  the  Rodin  statues  in  the  Luxembourg  museum.  He  had 
illustrated  Hutchins  Hapgood's  studies  of  the  ghetto  and  with  the  funds 
he  came  to  Paris  and  was  very  poor.  Now  when  I  first  saw  him,  he  had 
come  to  Paris  to  place  his  sphynx  statue  to  Oscar  Wilde  over  Oscar 
Wilde's  grave.  He  was  a  large  rather  stout  man,  not  unimpressive  but  not 
beautiful.  He  had  an  english  wife  who  had  a  very  remarkable  pair  of 
brown  eyes,  of  a  shade  of  brown  I  had  never  before  seen  in  eyes.  , 

Doctor  Claribel  Cone  of  Baltimore  came  majestically  in  and  out.  She 
loved  to  read  Gertrude  Stein's  work  out  loud  and  she  did  read  it  out  loud 
extraordinarily  well.  She  liked  ease  and  graciousness  and  comfort.  She 
and  her  sister  Etta  Cone  were  traveling.  The  only  room  in  the  hotel  was 
not  comfortable.  Etta  bade  her  sister  put  up  with  it  as  it  was  only  for 
one  night.  Etta,  answered  Doctor  Claribel,  one  night  is  as  important  as 
any  other  night  in  my  life  and  I  must  be  comfortable.  When  the  war 
broke  out  she  happened  to  be  in  Munich  engaged  in  scientific  work.  She 
could  never  leave  because  it  was  never  comfortable  to  travel.  Everybody 
delighted  in  Doctor  Claribel.  Much  later  Picasso  made  a  drawing  of  her. 

Emily  Chadbourne  came,  it  was  she  who  brought  Lady  Otoline  Mor- 
rell  and  she  also  brought  many  bostonians. 


1907-1914  105 

Mildred  Aldrich  once  brought  a  very  extraordinary  person  Myra 
Edgerly.  I  remembered  very  well  that  when  I  was  quite  young  and  went 
to  a  fancy-dress  ball,  a  Mardi  Gras  ball  in  San  Francisco,  I  saw  a  very 
tall  and  very  beautiful  and  very  brilliant  woman  there.  This  was  Myra 
Edgerly  young.  Genthe,  the  well  known  photographer  did  endless 
photographs  of  her,  mostly  with  a  cat.  She  had  come  to  London  as  a 
miniaturist  and  she  had  had  one  of  those  phenomenal  successes  that 
americans  do  have  in  Europe.  She  had  miniatured  everybody,  and  the 
royal  family,  and  she  had  maintained  her  earnest  gay  careless  outspoken 
San  Francisco  way  through  it  all.  She  now  came  to  Paris  to  study  a  little. 
She  met  Mildred  Aldrich  and  became  very  devoted  to  her.  Indeed  it  was 
Myra  who  in  nineteen  thirteen,  when  Mildred's  earning  capacity  was 
rapidly  dwindling  secured  an  annuity  for  her  and  made  it  possible  for 
Mildred  to  retire  to  the  Hilltop  on  the  Marne. 

Myra  Edgerly  was  very  earnestly  anxious  that  Gertrude  Stein's  work 
should  be  more  widely  known.  When  Mildred  told  her  about  all  those 
unpublished  manuscripts  Myra  said  something  must  be  done.  And  of 
course  something  was  done. 

She  knew  John  Lane  slightly  and  she  said  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  must 
go  to  London.  But  first  Myra  must  write  letters  and  then  I  must  write 
letters  to  everybody  for  Gertrude  Stein.  She  told  me  the  formula  I  must 
employ.  I  remember  it  began,  Miss  Gertrude  Stein  as  you  may  or  may 
not  know,  is,  and  then  you  went  on  and  said  everything  you  had  to  say. 

Under  Myra's  strenuous  impulsion  we  went  to  London  in  the  winter 
of  nineteen  twelve,  thirteen,  for  a  few  weeks.  We  did  have  an  awfully 
good  time. 

Myra  took  us  with  her  to  stay  with  Colonel  and  Mrs.  Rogers  at  River- 
hill  in  Surrey.  This  was  in  the  vicinity  of  Knole  and  of  Ightham  Mote, 
beautiful  houses  and  beautiful  parks.  This  was  my  first  experience  of 
country-house  visiting  in  England  since,  as  a  small  child,  I  had  only 
been  in  the  nursery.  I  enjoyed  every  minute  of  it.  The  comfort,  the  open 
fires,  the  tall  maids  who  were  like  annunciation  angels,  the  beautiful 
gardens,  the  children,  the  ease  of  it  all.  And  the  quantity  of  objects  and 
of  beautiful  things.  What  is  that,  I  would  ask  Mrs.  Rogers,  ah  that  I 
know  nothing  about,  it  was  here  when  I  came.  It  gave  me  a  feeling  that 
there  had  been  so  many  lovely  brides  in  that  house  who  had  found  all 
these  things  there  when  they  came. 


106  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Gertrude, Stein  liked  country-house  visiting  less  than  I  did.  The  con- 
tinuous pleasant  hesitating  flow  of  conversation,  the  never  ceasing  sound 
of  the  human  voice  speaking  in  english,  bothered  her. 

On  our  next  visit  to  London  and  when  because  of  being  caught  by  the 
war  we  stayed  in  country  houses  with  our  friends  a  very  long  time,  she 
managed  to  isolate  herself  for  considerable  parts  of  the  day  and  to  avoid 
at  least  one  of  the  three  or  four  meals,  and  so  she  liked  it  better. 

We  did  have  a  good  time  in  England.  Gertrude  Stein  completely  for- 
got her  early  dismal  memory  of  London  and  has  liked  visiting  there 
immensely  ever  since. 

We  went  to  Roger  Fry's  house  in  the  country  and  were  charmingly 
entertained  by  his  quaker  sister.  We  went  to  Lady  Otoline  Morrell  and 
met  everybody.  We  went  to  Clive  Bell's.  We  went  about  all  the  time,  we 
went  shopping  and  ordered  things.  I  still  have  my  bag  and  jewel  box. 
We  had  an  extremely  good  time.  And  we  went  very  often  to  see  John 
Lane.  In  fact  we  were  supposed  to  go  every  Sunday  afternoon  to  his 
house  for  tea  and  Gertrude  Stein  had  several  interviews  with  him  in  his 
office.  How  well  I  knew  all  the  things  in  all  the  shops  near  the  Bodley 
Head  because  while  Gertrude  Stein  was  inside  with  John  Lane  while 
nothing  happened  and  then  when  finally  something  happened  I  waited 
outside  and  looked  at  everything. 

The  Sunday  afternoons  at  John  Lane's  were  very  amusing.  As  I  re- 
member during  that  first  stay  in  London  we  went  there  twice. 

John  Lane  was  very  interested,  Mrs.  John  Lane  was  a  Boston  woman 
and  very  kind. 

Tea  at  the  John  Lane's  Sunday  afternoons  was  an  experience.  John 
Lane  had  copies  of  Three  Lives  and  The  Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge.  One 
did  not  know  why  he  selected  the  people  he  did  to  show  it  to.  He  did  not 
give  either  book  to  any  one  to  read.  He  put  it  into  their  hands  and  took 
it  away  again  and  inaudibly  he  announced  that  Gertrude  Stein  was  here. 
Nobody  was  introduced  to  anybody.  From  time  to  time  John  Lane 
would  take  Gertrude  Stein  into  various  rooms  and  show  her  his  pictures, 
odd  pictures  of  English  schools  of  all  periods,  some  of  them  very  pleasing. 
Sometimes  he  told  a  story  about  how  he  had  come  to  get  it.  He  never 
said  anything  else  about  a  picture.  He  also  showed  her  a  great  many 
Beardsley  drawings  and  they  talked  about  Paris. 

The  second  Sunday  he  asked  her  to  come  again  to  the  Bodley  Head. 


1907-1914  107 

This  was  a  long  interview.  He  said  that  Mrs.  Lane  had  read  Three  Lives 
and  thought  very  highly  of  it  and  that  he  had  the  greatest  confidence  in 
her  judgment.  He  asked  Gertrude  Stein  when  she  was  coming  back  to 
London.  She  said  she  probably  was  not  coming  back  to  London.  Well, 
he  said,  when  you  come  in  July  I  imagine  we  will  be  ready  to  arrange 
something.  Perhaps,  he  added,  I  may  see  you  in  Paris  in  the  early  spring. 

And  so  we  left  London.  We  were  on  the  whole  very  pleased  with 
ourselves.  We  had  had  a  very  good  time  and  it  was  the  first  time  that 
Gertrude  Stein  had  ever  had  a  conversation  with  a  publisher. 

Mildred  Aldrich  often  brought  a  whole  group  of  people  to  the  house 
Saturday  evening.  One  evening  a  number  of  people  came  in  with  her 
and  among  them  was  Mabel  Dodge.  I  remember  my  impression  of  her 
very  well. 

She  was  a  stoutish  woman  with  a  very  sturdy  fringe  of  heavy  hair 
over  her  forehead,  heavy  long  lashes  and  very  pretty  eyes  and  a  very  old 
fashioned  coquetry.  She  had  a  lovely  voice.  She  reminded  me  of  a  heroine 
of  my  youth,  the  actress  Georgia  Cayvan.  She  asked  us  to  come  to  Flor- 
ence to  stay  with  her.  We  were  going  to  spend  the  summer  as  was  then 
our  habit  in  Spain  but  we  were  going  to  be  back  in  Paris  in  the  fall  and 
perhaps  we  then  would.  When  we  came  back  there  were  several  urgent 
telegrams  from  Mabel  Dodge  asking  us  to  come  to  the  Villa  Curonia 
and  we  did. 

We  had  a  very  amusing  time.  We  liked  Edwin  Dodge  and  we  liked 
Mabel  Dodge  but  we  particularly  liked  Constance  Fletcher  whom  we 
met  there. 

Constance  Fletcher  came  a  day  or  so  after  we  arrived  and  I  went  to  the 
station  to  meet  her.  Mabel  Dodge  had  described  her  to  me  as  a  very 
large  woman  who  would  wear  a  purple  robe  and  who  was  deaf.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  she  was  dressed  in  green  and  was  not  deaf  but  very  short 
sighted,  and  she  was  delightful. 

Her  father  and  mother  came  from  and  lived  in  Newburyport,  Mas- 
sachusetts. Edwin  Dodge's  people  came  from  the  same  town  and  this 
was  a  strong  bond  of  union.  When  Constance  was  twelve  years  old  her 
mother  fell  in  love  with  the  english  tutor  of  Constance's  younger  brother. 
Constance  knew  that  her  mother  was  about  to  leave  her  home.  For  a 
week  Constance  laid  on  her  bed  and  wept  and  then  accompanied  her 
mother  and  her  future  step-father  to  Italy.  Her  step-father  being  an 


108  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

englishman  Constance  became  passionately  an  english  woman.  The  step- 
father was  a  painter  who  had  a  local  reputation  among  the  english  resi- 
dents in  Italy. 

When  Constance  Fletcher  was  eighteen  years  old  she  wrote  a  best- 
seller called  Kismet  and  was  engaged  to  be  married  to  Lord  Lovelace 
the  descendant  of  Byron. 

She  did  not  marry  him  and  thereafter  lived  always  in  Italy.  Finally 
she  became  permanently  fixed  in  Venice.  This  was  after  the  death  of 
her  mother  and  father.  I  always  liked  as  a  californian  her  description 
of  Joaquin  Miller  in  Rome,  in  her  younger  days. 

Now  in  her  comparative  old  age  she  was  attractive  and  impressive.  I 
am  very  fond  of  needlework  and  I  was  fascinated  by  her  fashion  of  em- 
broidering wreaths  of  flowers.  There  was  nothing  drawn  upon  her  linen, 
she  just  held  it  in  her  hands,  from  time  to  time  bringing  it  closely  to  one 
eye,  and  eventually  the  wreath  took  form.  She  was  very  fond  of  ghosts. 
There  were  two  of  them  in  the  Villa  Curonia  and  Mabel  was  very  fond 
of  frightening  visiting  americans  with  them  which  she  did  in  her  sug- 
gestive way  very  effectively.  Once  she  drove  a  house  party  consisting  of 
Jo  and  Yvonne  Davidson,  Florence  Bradley,  Mary  Foote  and  a  number 
of  others  quite  mad  with  fear.  And  at  last  to  complete  the  effect  she  had 
the  local  priest  in  to  exorcise  the  ghosts.  You  can  imagine  the  state  of 
mind  of  her  guests.  But  Constance  Fletcher  was  fond  of  ghosts  and  par- 
ticularly attached  to  the  later  one,  who  was  a  wistful  ghost  of  an  english 
governess  who  had  killed  herself  in  the  house. 

One  morning  I  went  in  to  Constance  Fletcher's  bedroom  to  ask  her 
how  she  was,  she  had  not  been  very  well  the  night  before. 

I  went  in  and  closed  the  door.  Constance  Fletcher  very  large  and  very 
white  was  lying  in  one  of  the  vast  renaissance  beds  with  which  the  villa 
was  furnished.  Near  the  door  was  a  very  large  renaissance  cupboard.  I 
had  a  delightful  night,  said  Constance  Fletcher,  the  gentle  ghost  visited 
me  all  night,  indeed  she  has  just  left  me.  I  imagine  she  is  still  in  the  cup- 
board, will  you  open  it  please.  I  did.  Is  she  there,  asked  Constance 
Fletcher.  I  said  I  saw  nothing.  Ah  yes,  said  Constance  Fletcher. 

We  had  a  delightful  time  and  Gertrude  Stein  at  that  time  wrote  The 
Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge.  She  also  wrote  the  portrait  of  Constance 
Fletcher  that  was  later  printed  in  Geography  and  Plays.  Many  years  later 
indeed  after  the  war  in  London  I  met  Siegfried  Sassoon  at  a  party  given 
by  Edith  Sitwell  for  Gertrude  Stein.  He  spoke  of  Gertrude  Stein's  por- 


1907-1914  109 

trait  of  Constance  Fletcher  which  he  had  read  in  Geography  and  Plays 
and  said  that  he  had  first  become  interested  in  Gertrude  Stein's  work 
because  of  this  portrait.  And  he  added,  and  did  you  know  her  and  if 
you  did  can  you  tell  me  about  her  marvellous  voice.  I  said,  very  much 
interested,  then  you  did  not  know  her.  No,  he  said,  I  never  saw  her  but 
she  ruined  my  life.  How,  I  asked  excitedly.  Because,  he  answered,  she 
separated  my  father  from  my  mother. 

Constance  Fletcher  had  written  "one  very  successful  play  which  had 
had  a  long  run  in  London  called  Green  Stockings  but  her  real  life  had 
been  in  Italy.  She  was  more  italian  than  the  Italians.  She  admired  her 
step-father  and  therefore  was  english  but  she  was  really  dominated  by 
the  fine  italian  hand  of  Machiavelli.  She  could  and  did  intrigue  in  the 
italian  way  better  than  even  the  italians  and  she  was  a  disturbing  influ- 
ence for  many  years  in  Venice  not  only  among  the  english  but  also 
among  the  italians. 

Andre  Gide  turned  up  while  we  were  at  the  Villa  Curonia.  It  was 
rather  a  dull  evening.  It  was  then  also  that  we  first  met  Muriel  Draper 
and  Paul  Draper.  Gertrude  Stein  always  liked  Paul  very  much.  She  de- 
lighted in  his  american  enthusiasm,  and  explanation  of  all  things  musical 
and  human.  He  had  had  a  great  deal  of  adventure  in  the  West  and  that 
was  another  bond  between  them.  When  Paul  Draper  left  to  return  to 
London  Mabel  Dodge  received  a  telegram  saying,  pearls  missing  sus- 
pect the  second  man.  She  came  to  Gertrude  Stein  in  great  agitation  ask- 
ing what  she  should  do  about  it.  Don't  wake  me,  said  Gertrude  Stein, 
do  nothing.  And  then  sitting  up,  but  that  is  a  nice  thing  to  say,  suspect 
the  second  man,  that  is  charming,  but  who  and  what  is  the  second  man. 
Mabel  explained  that  the  last  time  they  had  a  robbery  in  the  villa  the 
police  said  that  they  could  do  nothing  because  nobody  suspected  any 
particular  person  and  this  time  Paul  to  avoid  that  complication  suspected 
the  second  man  servant.  While  this  explanation  was  being  given  another 
telegram  came,  pearls  found.  The  second  man  had  put  the  pearls  in  the 
collar  box. 

Haweis  and  his  wife,  later  Mina  Loy  were  also  in  Florence.  Their 
home  had  been  dismantled  as  they  had  had  workmen  in  it  but  they  put 
it  all  in  order  to  give  us  a  delightful  lunch.  Both  Haweis  and  Mina  were 
among  the  very  earliest  to  be  interested  in  the  work  of  Gertrude  Stein. 
Haweis  had  been  fascinated  with  what  he  had  read  in  manuscript  of 
The  Making  of  Americans.  He  did  however  plead  for  commas.  Ger- 


110  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

trude  Stein  said  commas  were  unnecessary,  the  sense  should  be  intrinsic 
and  not  have  to  be  explained  by  commas  and  otherwise  commas  were 
only  a  sign  that  one  should  pause  and  take  breath  but  one  should  know 
of  oneself  when  one  wanted  to  pause  and  take  breath.  However,  as  she 
liked  Haweis  very  much  and  he  had  given  her  a  delightful  painting  for 
a  fan,  she  gave  him  two  commas.  It  must  however  be  added  that  on  re- 
reading the  manuscript  she  took  the  commas  out. 

Mina  Loy  equally  interested  was  able  to  understand  without  the 
commas.  She  has  always  been  able  to  understand. 

Gertrude  Stein  having  written  The  Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge,  Mabel 
Dodge  immediately  wanted  it  printed.  She  had  three  hundred  copies 
struck  off  and  bound  in  Florentine  paper.  Constance  Fletcher  corrected 
the  proofs  and  we  were  all  awfully  pleased.  Mabel  Dodge  immediately 
conceived  the  idea  that  Gertrude  Stein  should  be  invited  from  one  coun- 
try house  to  another  and  do  portraits  and  then  end  up  doing  portraits  of 
american  millionaires  which  would  be  a  very  exciting  and  lucrative 
career.  Gertrude  Stein  laughed.  A  little  later  we  went  back  to  Paris. 

It  was  during  this  winter  that  Gertrude  Stein  began  to  write  plays. 
They  began  with  the  one  entitled,  It  Happened  a  Play.  This  was  writ- 
ten about  a  dinner  party  given  by  Harry  and  Bridget  Gibb.  She  then 
wrote  Ladies'  Voices.  Her  interest  in  writing  plays  continues.  She  says 
a  landscape  is  such  a  natural  arrangement  for  a  battle-field  or  a  play  that 
one  must  write  plays. 

Florence  Bradley,  a  friend  of  Mabel  Dodge,  was  spending  a  winter  in 
Paris.  She  had  had  some  stage  experience  and  had  been  interested  in 
planning  a  little  theatre.  She  was  vitally  interested  in  putting  these  plays 
on  the  stage.  Demuth  was  in  Paris  too  at  this  time.  He  was  then  more 
interested  in  writing  than  in  painting  and  particularly  interested  in  these 
plays.  He  and  Florence  Bradley  were  always  talking  them  over  together. 

Gertrude  Stein  has  never  seen  Demuth  since.  When  she  first  heard 
that  he  was  painting  she  was  much  interested.  They  never  wrote  to  each 
other  but  they  often  sent  messages  by  mutual  friends.  Demuth  always 
sent  word  that  some  day  he  would  do  a  little  picture  that  would  thor- 
oughly please  him  and  then  he  would  send  it  to  her.  And  sure  enough 
after  all  these  years,  two  years  ago  some  one  left  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus 
during  our  absence  a  little  picture  with  a  message  that  this  was  the  pic- 
ture that  Demuth  was  ready  to  give  to  Gertrude  Stein.  It  is  a  remark- 
able little  landscape  in  which  the  roofs  and  windows  are  so  subtle  that 


,1907-1914  111 

they  are  as  mysterious  and  as  alive  as  the  roofs  and  windows  of  Haw- 
thorne or  Henry  James. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  Mabel  Dodge  went  to  America  and  it 
was  the  winter  of  the  armoury  show  which  was  the  first  time  the  general 
public  had  a  chance  to  see  any  of  these  pictures.  It  was  there  that  Marcel 
Duchamp's  Nude  Descending  the  Staircase  was  shown. 

It  was  about  this  time  that  Picabia  and  Gertrude  Stein  met.  I  remem- 
ber going  to  dinner  at  the  Picabias'  and  a  pleasant  dinner  it  was,  Gabrielle 
Picabia  full  of  life  and  gaiety,  Picabia  dark  and  lively,  and  Marcel 
Duchamp  looking  like  a  young  norman  crusader. 

I  was  always  perfectly  able  to  understand  the  enthusiasm  that  Marcel 
Duchamp  aroused  in  New  York  when  he  went  there  in  the  early  years 
of  the  war.  His  brother  had  just  died  from  the  effect  of  his  wounds,  his 
other  brother  was  still  at  the  front  and  he  himself  was  inapt  for  military 
service.  He  was  very  depressed  and  he  went  to  America.  Everybody 
loved  him.  So  much  so  that  it  was  a  joke  in  Paris  that  when  any  american 
arrived  in  Paris  the  first  thing  he  said  was,  and  how  is  Marcel.  Once 
Gertrude  Stein  went  to  see  Braque,  just  after  the  war,  and  going  into 
the  studio  in  which  there  happened  just  then  to  be  three  young  ameri- 
cans,  she  said  to  Braque,  and  how  is  Marcelle.  The  three  young  americans 
came  up  to  her  breathlessly  and  said,  have  you  seen  Marcel.  She  laughed, 
and  having  become  accustomed  to  the  inevitableness  of  the  american  be- 
lief that  there  was  only  one  Marcel,  she  explained  that  Braque's  wife  was 
named  Marcelle  and  it  was  Marcelle  Braque  about  whom  she  was  en- 
quiring. 

In  those  days  Picabia  and  Gertrude  Stein  did  not  get  to  be  very  good 
friends.  He  annoyed  her  with  his  incessantness  and  what  she  called  the 
vulgarity  of  his  delayed  adolescence.  But  oddly  enough  in  this  last  year 
they  have  gotten  to  be  very  fond  of  each  other.  She  is  very  much  inter- 
ested in  his  drawing  and  in  his  painting.  It  began  with  his  show  just  a 
year  ago.  She  is  now  convinced  that  although  he  has  in  a  sense  not  a 
painter's  gift  he  has  an  idea  that  has  been  and  will  be  of  immense  value 
to  all  time.  She  calls  him  the  Leonardo  da  Vinci  of  the  movement.  And 
i{  is  true,  he  understands  and  invents  everything. 

As  soon  as  the  winter  of  the  armoury  show  was  over  Mabel  Dodge 
came  back  to  Europe  and  she  brought  with  her  what  Jacques-Emile 
Blanche  called  her  collection  des  jeunes  gens  assortis,  a  mixed  assort- 
ment of  young  men.  In  the  lot  were  Carl  Van  Vechten,  Robert  Jones 


112  THE. AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

and  John  Reed.  Carl  Van  Vechten  did  not  come  to  the  rue  de  Fleurus 
with  her.  He  came  later  in  the  spring  by  himself.  The  other  two  came 
with  her.  I  remember  the  evening  they  all  came.  Picasso  was  there  too. 
He  looked  at  John  Reed  critically  and  said,  le  genre  de  Braque  mais 
beaucoup  moins  rigolo,  Braque's  kind  but  much  less  diverting.  I  remem- 
ber also  that  Reed  told  me  about  his  trip  through  Spain.  He  told  me  he 
had  seen  many  strange  sights  there,  that  he  had  seen  witches  chased 
through  the  street  of  Salamanca.  As  I  had  been  spending  months  in 
Spain  and  he  only  weeks  I  neither  liked  his  stories  nor  believed  them. 

Robert  Jones  was  very  impressed  by  Gertrude  Stein's  looks.  He  said 
he  would  like  to  array  her  in  cloth  of  gold  and  he  wanted  to  design  it 
then  and  there.  It  did  not  interest  her. 

Among  the  people  that  we  had  met  at  John  Lane's  in  London  was 
Gordon  Caine  and  her  husband.  Gordon  Caine  had  been  a  Wellesley 
girl  who  played  the  harp  with  which  she  always  travelled,  and  who  al- 
ways re-arranged  the  furniture  in  the  hotel  room  completely,  even  if  she 
was  only  to  stay  one  night.  She  was  tall,  rosy-haired  and  very  good-look- 
ing. Her  husband  was  a  well  known  humorous  english  writer  and  one 
of  John  Lane's  authors.  They,  had  entertained  us  very  pleasantly  in  Lon- 
don and  we  asked  them  to  dine  with  us  their  first  night  in  Paris.  I  don't 
know  quite  what  happened  but  Helene  cooked  a  very  bad  dinner.  Only 
twice  in  all  her  long  service  did  Helene  fail  us.  This  time  and  when  about 
two  weeks  later  Carl  Van  Vechten  turned  up.  That  time  too  she  did 
strange  things,  her  dinner  consisting  of  a  series  of  hors  d'ceuvres.  How- 
ever that  is  later. 

During  dinner  Mrs.  Caine  said  that  she  had  taken  the  liberty  of  ask- 
ing her  very  dear  friend  and  college  mate  Mrs.  Van  Vechten  to  come 
in  after  dinner  because  she  was  very  anxious  that  she  should  meet  Ger- 
trude Stein  as  she  was  very  depressed  and  unhappy  and  Gertrude  Stein 
could  undoubtedly  have  an  influence  for  the  good  in  her  life.  Gertrude 
Stein  said  that  she  had  a  vague  association  with  the  name  of  Van  Vech- 
ten but  could  not  remember  what  it  was.  She  has  a  bad  memory  for 
names.  Mrs.  Van  Vechten  came.  She  too  was  a  very  tall  woman,  it  would 
appear  that  a  great  many  tall  ones  go  to  Wellesley,  and  she  too  was 
good-looking.  Mrs.  Van  Vechten  told  the  story  of  the  tragedy  of  her 
married  life  but  Gertrude  Stein  was  not  particularly  interested. 

It  was  about  a  week  later  that  .Florence  Bradley  asked  us  to  go  with 
her  to  see  the  second  performance  of  the  Sacre  du  Printemps.  The  rus- 


1907-1914  113 

sian  ballet  had  just  given  the  first  performance  of  it  and  it  had  made 
a  terrible  uproar.  All  Paris  was  excited  about  it.  Florence  Bradley  had 
gotten  three  tickets  in  a  box,  the  box  held  four,  and  asked  us  to  go  with 
her.  In  the  meantime  there  had  been  a  letter  from  Mabel  Dodge  intro- 
ducing Carl  Van  Vechten,  a  young  New  York  journalist.  Gertrude  Stein 
invited  him  to  dine  the  following  Saturday  evening. 

We  went  early  to  the  russian  ballet,  these  were  the  early  great  days  of 
the  russian  ballet  with  Nijinsky  as  the  great  dancer.  And  a  great  dancer 
he  was.  Dancing  excites  me  tremendously  and  it  is  a  thing  I  know  a 
great  deal  about.  I  have  seen  three  very  great  dancers.  My  geniuses  seem 
to  run  in  threes,  but  that  is  not  my  fault,  it  happens  to  be  a  fact.  The 
three  really  great  dancers  I  have  seen  are  the  Argentina,  Isadora  Duncan 
and  Nijinsky.  Like  the  three  geniuses  I  have  known  they  are  each  one 
of  a  different  nationality. 

Nijinsky  did  not  dance  in  the  Sacre  du  Printemps  but  he  created  the 
dance  of  those  who  did  dance.  • 

We  arrived  in  the  box  and  sat  down  in  the  three  front  chairs  leaving 
one  chair  behind.  Just  in  front  of  us  in  the  seats  below  was  Guillaume 
Apollinaire.  He  was  dressed  in  evening  clothes  and  he  was  industriously 
kissing  various  important  looking  ladies'  hands.  He  was  the  first  one  of 
his  crowd  to  come  out  into  the  great  world  wearing  evening  clothes  and 
kissing  hands.  We  were  very  amused  and  very  pleased  to  see  him  do  it. 
It  was  the  first  time  we  had  seen  him  doing  it.  After  the  war  they  all  did 
these  things  but  he  was  the  only  one  to  commence  before  the  war. 

Just  before  the  performance  began  the  fourth  chair  in  our  box  was  oc- 
cupied. We  looked  around  and  there  was  a  tall  well-built  young  man, 
he  might  have  been  a  dutchman,  a  Scandinavian  or  an  american  and  he 
wore  a  soft  evening  shirt  with  the  tiniest  pleats  all  over  the  front  of  it. 
It  was  impressive,  we  had  never  even  heard  that  they  were  wearing 
evening  shirts  like  that.  That  evening  when  we  got  home  Gertrude  Stein 
did  a  portrait  of  the  unknown  called  a  Portrait  of  One. 

The  performance  began.  No  sooner  had  it  commenced  when  the  ex- 
citement began.  The  scene  now  so  well  known  with  its  brilliantly  col- 
oured background  now  not  at  all  extraordinary,  outraged  the  Paris 
audience.  No  sooner  did  the  music  begin  and  the  dancing  than  they 
began  to  hiss.  The  defenders  began  to  applaud.  We  could  hear  nothing, 
as  a  matter  of  fact  I  never  did  hear  any  of  the  music  of  the  Sacre  du 
Printemps  because  it  was  the  only  time  I  ever  saw  it  and  one  literally 


114  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

could  not,  throughout  the  whole  performance,  hear  the  sound  of  music. 
The  dancing  was  very  fine  and  that  we  could  see  although  our  atten- 
tion was  constantly  distracted  by  a  man  in  the  box  next  to  us  flourish- 
ing his  cane,  and  finally  in  a  violent  altercation  with  an  enthusiast  in 
the  box  next  to  him,  his  cane  came  down  and  smashed  the  opera  hat  the 
other  had  just  put  on  in  defiance.  It  was  all  incredibly  fierce. 

The  next  Saturday  evening  Carl  Van  Vechten  was  to  come  to  dinner. 
He  came  and  he  was  the  young  man  of  the  soft  much-pleated  evening 
shirt  and  it  was  the  same  shirt.  Also  of  course  he  was  the  hero  or  villain 
of  Mrs.  Van  Vechten's  tragic  tale. 

As  I  said  Helene  did  for  the  second  time  in  her  life  make  an  extraor- 
dinarily bad  dinner.  For  some  reason  best  known  to  herself  she  gave  us 
course  after  course  of  hors  d'oeuvres  finishing  up  with  a  sweet  omelet. 
Gertrude  Stein  began  to  tease  Carl  Van  Vechten  by  dropping  a  word 
here  and  there  of  intimate  knowledge  of  his  past  life.  He  was  naturally 
bewildered.  It  was  a  curious  evening. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  he  became  dear  friends. 

He  interested  Allan  and  Louise  Norton  in  her  work  and  induced  them 
to  print  in  the  little  magazine  they  founded,  The  Rogue,  the  first  thing 
of  Gertrude  Stein's  ever  printed  in  a  little  magazine,  The  Galerie 
Lafayette.  In  another  number  of  this  now  rare  little  magazine,  he  printed 
a  little  essay  on  the  work  of  Gertrude  Stein.  It  was  he  who  in  one  of  his 
early  books  printed  as  a  motto  the  device  on  Gertrude  Stein's  note-paper, 
a  rose  is  a  rose  is  a  rose  is  a  rose.  Just  recently  she  has  had  made  for  him 
by  our  local  potter  at  the  foot  of  the  hill  at  Belley  some  plates  in  the  yel- 
low clay  of  the  country  and  around  the  border  is  a  rose  is  a  rose  is  aVose 
is  a  rose  and  in  the  centre  is  to  Carl. 

In  season  and  out  he  kept  her  name  and  her  work  before  the  public. 
When  he  was  beginning  to  be  well  known  and  they  asked  him  what  he 
thought  the  most  important  book  of  the  year  he  replied  Three  Lives  by 
Gertrude  Stein.  His  loyalty  and  his  effort  never  weakened.  He  tried  to 
make  Knopf  publish  The  Making  of  Americans  and  he  almost  suc- 
ceeded but  of  course  they  weakened. 

Speaking  of  the  device  of  rose  is  a  rose  is  a  rose  is  a  rose,  it  was  I  who 
found  it  in  one  of  Gertrude  Stein's  manuscripts  and  insisted  upon  put- 
ting it  as  a  device  on  the  letter  paper,  on  the  table  linen  and  anywhere 
that  she  would  permit  that  I  would  put  it.  I  am  very  pleased  with  myself 
for  having  done  so. 


1907-1914  115 

Carl  Van  Vcchten  has  had  a  delightful  habit  all  these  years  of  giving 
letters  of  introduction  to  people  who  he  thought  would  amuse  Gertrude 
Stein.  This  he  has  done  with  so  much  discrimination  that  she  has  liked 
them  all. 

The  first  and  perhaps  the  one  she  has  liked  the  best  was  Avery  Hop- 
wood.  The  friendship  lasted  until  Avery's  death  a  few  years  ago.  When 
Avery  came  to  Paris  he  always  asked  Gertrude  Stein  and  myself  to  dine 
with  him.  This  custom  began  in  the  early  days  of  the  acquaintance. 
Gertrude  Stein  is  not  a  very  enthusiastic  diner-out  but  she  never  refused 
Avery.  He  always  had  the  table  charmingly  decorated  with  flowers  and 
the  menu  most  carefully  chosen.  He  sent  us  endless  petits  bleus,  little 
telegrams,  arranging  this  affair  and  we  alwaysjiad  a  good  time.  In  these 
early  days,  holding  his  head  a  little  on  one  side  and  with  his  tow-coloured 
hair,  he  looked  like  a  lamb.  Sometimes  in  the  latter  days  as  Gertrude 
Stein  told  him  the  lamb  turned  into  a  wolf.  Gertrude  Stein  would  I 
know  at  this  moment  say,  dear  Avery.  They  were  very  fond  of  each 
other.  Not  long  before  his  death  he  came  into  the  room  one  day  and  said 
I  wish  I  could  give  you  something  else  beside  just  dinner,  he  said,  per- 
haps I  could  give  you  a  picture.  Gertrude  Stein  laughed,  it  is  alright,  she 
said  to  him,  Avery,  if  you  will  always  come  here  and  take  just  tea.  And 
then  in  the  future  beside  the  petit  bleu  in  which  he  proposed  our  dining 
with  him  he  would  send  another  petit  bleu  saying  that  he  would  come 
one  afternoon  to  take  just  tea.  Once  he  came  and  brought  with  him  Ger- 
trude /ftherton.  He  said  so  sweetly,  I  want  the  two  Gertrudes  whom  I 
love  so  much  to  know  each  other.  It  was  a  perfectly  delightful  after- 
noon. Every  one  was  pleased  and  charmed  and  as  for  me  a  californian, 
Gertrude  Atherton  had  been  my  youthful  idol  and  so  I  was  very  content. 

The  last  time  we  saw  Avery  was  on  his  last  visit  to  Paris.  He  sent  his 
usual  message  asking  us  to  dinner  and  when  he  came  to  call  for  us  he 
told  Gertrude  Stein  that  he  had  asked  some  of  his  friends  to  come  be- 
cause he  was  going  to  ask  her  to  do  something  for  him.  You  see,  he  said, 
you  have  never  gone  to  Montmartre  with  me  and  I  have  a  great  fancy 
that  you  should  to-night.  I  know  it  was  your  Montmartre  long  before  it 
was  mine  but  would  you.  She  laughed  and  said,  of  course  Avery. 

We  did  after  dinner  go  up  to  Montmartre  with  him.  We  went  to  a 
great  many  queer  places  and  he  was  so  proud  and  pleased.  We  were 
always  going  in  a  cab  from  one  place  to  another  and  Avery  Hopwood 
and  Gertrude  Stein  went  together  and  they  had  long  talks  and  Avery 


116  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

must  have  had  some  premonition  that  it  was  the  last  time  because  he 
had  never  talked  so  openly  and  so  intimately.  Finally  we  left  and  he 
came  out  and  put  us  into  a  cab  and  he  told  Gertrude  Stein  it  had  been 
one  of  the  best  evenings  of  his  life.  He  left  the  next  day  for  the  south 
and  we  for  the  country.  A  little  while  after  Gertrude  Stein  had  a  postal 
from  him  telling  her  how  happy  he  had  been  to  see  her  again  and  the 
same  morning  there  was  the  news  of  his  death  in  the  Herald. 

It  was  about  nineteen  twelve  that  Alvin  Langdon  Coburn  turned  up 
in  Paris.  He  was  a  queer  american  who  brought  with  him  a  queer 
english  woman,  his  adopted  mother.  Alvin  Langdon  Coburn  had  just 
finished  a  series  of  photographs  that  he  had  done  for  Henry  James.  He 
had  published  a  book  of  photographs  of  prominent  men  and  he  wished 
now  to  do  a  companion  volume  of  prominent  women.  I  imagine  it  was 
Roger  Fry  who  had  told  him  about  Gertrude  Stein.  At  any  rate  he  was 
the  first  photographer  to  come  and  photograph  her  as  a  celebrity  and 
she  was  nicely  gratified.  He  did  make  some  very  good  photographs  of 
her  and  gave  them  to  her  and  then  he  disappeared  and  though  Gertrude 
Stein  has  often  asked  about  him  nobody  seems  ever  to  have  heard  of  him 
since. 

This  brings  us  pretty  well  to  the  spring  of  nineteen  fourteen.  During 
this  winter  among  the  people  who  used  to  come  to  the  house  was  the 
younger  step-daughter  of  Bernard  Berenson.  She  brought  with  her  a 
young  friend,  Hope  Mirlees  and  Hope  said  that  when  we  went  to 
England  in  the  summer  we  must  go  down  to  Cambridge  and  sfay  with 
her  people.  We  promised  that  we  would. 

During  the  winter  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  decided  that  he  would  go 
to  Florence  to  live.  They  divided  the  pictures  that  they  had  bought  to- 
gether, between  them.  Gertrude  Stein  kept  the  Cezannes  and  Picassos 
and  her  brother  the  Matisses  and  Renoirs,  with  the  exception  of  the 
original  Femme  au  Chapeau. 

We  planned  that  we  would  have  a  little  passage-way  made  between 
the  studio  and  the  little  house  and  as  that  entailed  cutting  a  door  and 
plastering  we  decided  that  we  would  paint  the  atelier  and  repaper  the 
house  and  put  in  electricity.  We  proceeded  to  have  all  this  done.  It  was 
the  end  of  June  before  this  was  accomplished  and  the  house  had  not  yet 
been  put  in  order  when  Gertrude  Stein  received  a  letter  from  John  Lane 
saying  he  would  be  in  Paris  the  following  day  and  would  come  to  see  her. 


1907-1914  117 

We  worked  very  hard,  that  is  I  did  and  the  concierge  and  Helene 
and  the  room  was  ready  to  receive  him. 

He  brought  with  him  the  first  copy  of  Blast  by  Wyndham  Lewis  and 
he  gave  it  to  Gertrude  Stein  and  wanted  to  know  what  she  thought  of 
it  and  would  she  write  for  it.  She  said  she  did  not  know. 

John  Lane  then  asked  her  if  she  would  come  to  London  in  July  as  he 
had  almost  made  up  his  mind  to  republish  the  Three  Lives  and  would 
she  bring  another  manuscript  with  her.  She  said  she  would  and  she 
suggested  a  collection  of  all  the  portraits  she  had  done  up  to  that  time. 
The  Making  of  Americans  was  not  considered  because  it  was  too  long. 
And  so  that  having  been  arranged  John  Lane  left. 

In  those  days  Picasso  having  lived  rather  sadly  in  the  rue  Schoelcher 
was  to  move  a  little  further  out  to  Montrouge.  It  was  not  an  unhappy  time 
for  him  but  after  the  Montmartre  days  one  never  heard  his  high  whinny- 
ing Spanish  giggle.  His  friends,  a  great  many  of  them,  had  followed  him 
to  Montparnasse  but  it  was  not  the  same.  The  intimacy  with  Braque  was 
waning  and  of  his  old  friends  the  only  ones  he  saw  frequently  were 
Guillaume  Apollinaire  and  Gertrude  Stein.  It  was  in  that  year  that  he 
began  to  use  ripolin  paints  instead  of  the  usual  colours  used  by  painters. 
Just  the  other  day  he  was  talking  a  long  time  about  the  ripolin  paints. 
They  are,  said  he  gravely,  la  same  des  couleurs,  that  is  they  are  the  basis 
of  good  health  for  paints.  In  those  days  he  painted  pictures  and  every- 
thing with  ripolin  paints  as  he  still  does,  and  as  so  many  of  his  follow- 
ers young  and  old  do. 

He  was  at  this  time  too  making  constructions  in  paper,  in  tin  and  in  all 
sorts  of  things,  the  sort  of  thing  that  made  it  possible  for  him  afterwards 
to  do  the  famous  stage  setting  for  Parade. 

It  was  in  these  days  that  Mildred  Aldrich  was  preparing  to  retire  to 
the  Hilltop  on  the  Marne.  She  too  was  not  unhappy  but  rather  sad.  She 
wanted  us  often  in  those  spring  evenings  to  take  a  cab  and  have  what 
she  called  our  last  ride  together.  She  more  often  than  ever  dropped  her 
house  key  all  the  way  down  the  centre  of  the  stairway  while  she  called 
good-night  to  us  from  the  top  story  of  the  apartment  house  on  the  rue 
Boissonade. 

We  often  went  out  to  the  country  with  her  to  see  her  house.  Finally 
she  moved  in.  We  went  out  and  spent  the  day  with  her.  Mildred  was  not 
unhappy  but  she  was  very  sad.  My  curtains  are  all  up,  my  books  in  order, 


118  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

everything  is  clean  and  what  shall  I  do  now,  said  Mildred.  I  told  her  that 
when  I  was  a  little  girl,  my  mother  said  that  I  always  used  to  say,  what 
shall  I  do  now,  which  was  only  varied  by  now  what  shall  I  do.  Mildred 
said  that  the  worst  of  it  was  that  we  were  going  to  London  and  that  she 
would  not  see  us  all  summer.  We  assured  her  that  we  would  only  stay 
away  a  month,  in  fact  we  had  return  tickets,  and  so  we  had  to,  and  as  soon 
as  we  got  home  we  would  go  out  to  see  her.  Anyway  she  was  happy  that 
at  last  Gertrude  Stein  was  going  to  have  a  publisher  who  would  publish 
her  books.  But  look  out  for  John  Lane,  he  is  a  fox,  she  said,  as  we  kissed 
her  and  left. 

Helene  was  leaving  27  rue  de  Fleurus  because,  her  husband  having 
recently  been  promoted  to  be  foreman  in  his  work  shop  he  insisted  that 
she  must  not  work  out  any  longer  but  must  stay  at  home. 

In  short  in  this  spring  and  early  summer  of  nineteen  fourteen  the  old 
life  was  over. 


6    The  War 


Americans  living  in  Europe  before  the  war  never  really  believed  that 
there  was  going  to  be  war.  Gertrude  Stein  always  tells  about  the  little 
janitor's  boy  who,  playing  in  the  court,  would  regularly  every  couple  of 
years  assure  her  that  papa  was  going  to  the  war.  Once  some  cousins  of 
hers  were  living  in  Paris,  they  had  a  country  girl  as  a  servant.  It  was  the 
time  of  the  russian-japanese  war  and  they  were  all  talking  about  the 
latest  news.  Terrified  she  dropped  the  platter  and  cried,  and  are  the  ger- 
mans  at  the  gates. 

William  Cook's  father  was  an  lowan  who  at  seventy  years  of  age  was 
making  his  first  trip  in  Europe  in  the  summer  of  nineteen  fourteen. 
When  the  war  was  upon  them  he  refused  to  believe  it  and  explained 
that  he  could  understand  a  family  fighting  among  themselves,  in  short 
a  civil  war,  but  not  a  serious  war  with  one's  neighbours. 

Gertrude  Stein  in  1913  and  1914  had  been  very  interested  reading  the 
newspapers.  She  rarely  read  french  newspapers,  she  never  read  anything 
in  french,  and  she  always  read  the  Herald.  That  winter  she  added  the 
Daily  Mail.  She  liked  to  read  about  the  suffragettes  and  she  liked  to  read 
about  Lord  Roberts'  campaign  for  compulsory  military  service  in 
England.  Lord  Roberts  had  been  a  favourite  hero  of  hers  early  in  her 
life.  His  Forty-One  Years  In  India  was  a  book  she  often  read  and  she 
had  seen  Lord  Roberts  when  she  and  her  brother,  then  taking  a  college 
vacation,  had  seen  Edward  the  Seventh's  coronation  procession.  She 
read  the  Daily  Mail,  although,  as  she  said,  she  was  not  interested  in 
Ireland. 

We  went  to  England  July  fifth  and  went  according  to  programme 
to  see  John  Lane  at  his  house  Sunday  afternoon. 

There  were  a  number  of  people  there  and  they  were  talking  of  many 
things  but  some  of  them  were  talking  about  war.  One  of  them,  some 
one  told  me  he  was  an  editorial  writer  on  one  of  the  big  London  dailies, 
was  bemoaning  the  fact  that  he  would  not  be  able  to  eat  figs  in  August 

119 


120  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

in  Provence  as  was  his  habit. .  Why  not,  asked  some  one.  Because  of  the 
war,  he  answered.  Some  one  else,  Walpole  or  his  brother  I  think  it  was, 
said  that  there  was  no  hope  of  beating  Germany  as  she  had  such  an 
excellent  system,  all  her  railroad  trucks  were  numbered  in  connection 
with  locomotives  and  switches.  But,  said  the  eater  of  figs,  that  is  all  very 
well  as  long  as  the  trucks  remain  in  Germany  on  their  own  lines  and 
switches,  but  in  an  aggressive  war  they  will  leave  the  frontiers  of  Ger- 
many and  then,  well  I  promise  you  then  there  will  be  a  great  deal  of  num- 
bered confusion. 

This  is  all  I  remember  definitely  of  that  Sunday  afternoon  in  July. 

As  we  were  leaving,  John  Lane  said  to  Gertrude  Stein  that  he  was 
going  out  of  town  for  a  week  and  he  made  a  rendezvous  with  her  in  his 
office  for  the  end  of  July,  to  sign  the  contract  for  Three  Lives.  I  think,  he 
said,  in  the  present  state  of  affairs  I  would  rather  begin  with  that  than 
with  something  more  entirely  new.  I  have  confidence  in  that  book.  Mrs. 
Lane  is  very  enthusiastic  and  so  are  the  readers. 

Having  now  ten  days  on  our  hands  we  decided  to  accept  the  invitation 
of  Mrs.  Mirlees,  Hope's  mother,  and  spend  a  few  days  in  Cambridge. 
We  went  there  and  thoroughly  enjoyed  ourselves. 

It  was  a  most  comfortable 'house  to  visit.  Gertrude  Stein  liked  it,  she 
could  stay  in  her  room  or  in  the  garden  as  much  as  she  liked  without 
hearing  too  much  conversation.  The  food  was  excellent,  scotch  food, 
delicious  and  fresh,  and  it  was  very  amusing  meeting  all  the  University 
of  Cambridge  dignitaries.  We  were  taken  into  all  the  gardens  and  in- 
vited into  many  of  the  homes.  It  was  lovely  weather,  quantities  of  roses, 
morris-dancing  by  all  the  students  and  girls  and  generally  delightful. 
We  were  invited  to  lunch  at  Newnham,  Miss  Jane  Harrison,  who  had 
been  Hope  Mirlees'  pet  enthusiasm,  was  much  interested  in  meeting 
Gertrude  Stein.  We  sat  up  on  the  dais  with  the  faculty  and  it  was  very 
awe  inspiring.  The  conversation  was  not  however  particularly  amusing. 
Miss  Harrison  and  Gertrude  Stein  did  not  particularly  interest  each 
other. 

We  had  been  hearing  a  good  deal  about  Doctor  and  Mrs.  Whitehead. 
They  no  longer  lived  in  Cambridge.  The  year  before  Doctor  Whitehead 
had  left  Cambridge  to  go  to  London  University.  They  were  to  be  in 
Cambridge  shortly  and  they  were  to  dine  at  the  Mirlees'.  They  did  and 
I  met  my  third  genius. 

It  was  a  pleasant  dinner.  I  sat  next  to  Housman,  the  Cambridge  poet, 


THE  WAR  121 

and  we  talked  about  fishes  and  David  Starr  Jordan  but  all  the  time  I 
was  more  interested  in  watching  Doctor  Whitehead.  Later  we  went  into 
the  garden  and  he  came  and  sat  next  to  me  and  we  talked  about  the  sky 
in  Cambridge. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  Doctor  Whitehead  and  Mrs.  Whitehead  all  be- 
came interested  in  each  other.  Mrs.  Whitehead  asked  us  to  dine  at  her 
house  in  London  and  then  to  spend  a  week  end,  the  last  week  end  in  July 
with  them  in  their  country  home  in  Lockridge,  near  Salisbury  Plain.  We 
accepted  with  pleasure. 

We  went  back  to  London  and  had  a  lovely  time.  We  were  ordering 
some  comfortable  chairs  and  a  comfortable  couch  covered  with  chintz 
to  replace  some  of  the  italian  furniture  that  Gertrude  Stein's  brother  had 
taken  with  him.  This  took  a  great  deal  of  time.  We  had  to  measure  our- 
selves into  the  chairs  and  into  the  couch  and  to  choose  chintz  that  would 
go  with  the  pictures,  all  of  which  we  successfully  achieved.  These  chairs 
and  this  couch,  and  they  are  comfortable,  in  spite  of  war  came  to  the 
door  one  day  in  January,  nineteen  fifteen  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus  and  were 
greeted  by  us  with  the  greatest  delight.  One  needed  such  comforting 
and  such  comfort  in  those  days.  We  dined  with  the  Whiteheads  and 
liked  them  more  than  ever  and  they  liked  us  more  than  ever  and  were 
kind  enough  to  say  so. 

Gertrude  Stein  kept  her  appointment  with  John  Lane  at  the  Bodley 
Head.  They  had  a  very  long  conversation,  this  time  so  long  that  I  quite 
exhausted  all  the  shop  windows  of  that  region  for  quite  a  distance,  but 
finally  Gertrude  Stein  came  out  with  a  contract.  It  was  a  gratifying 
climax. 

Then  we  took  the  train  to  Lockridge  to  spend  the  week  end  with  the 
Whiteheads.  We  had  a  week-end  trunk,  we  were  very  proud  of  our 
week-end  trunk,  we  had  used  it  on  our  first  visit  and  now  we  were 
actively  using  it  again.  As  one  of  my  friends  said  to  me  later,  they  asked 
you  to  spend  the  week  end  and  you  stayed  six  weeks.  We  did. 

There  was  quite  a  house  party  when  we  arrived,  some  Cambridge 
people,  some  young  men,  the  younger  son  of  the  Whiteheads,  Eric,  then 
fifteen  years  old  but  very  tall  and  flower-like  and  the  daughter  Jessie 
just  back  from  Newnham.  There  could  not  have  been  much  serious 
thought  of  war  because  they  were  all  talking  of  Jessie  Whitehead's  com- 
ing trip  to  Finland.  Jessie  always  made  friends  with  foreigners  from 
strange  places,  she  had  a  passion  for  geography  and  a  passion  for  the 


122  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

glory  of  the  British  Empire.  She  had  a  friend,  a  firm,  who  had  asked  her 
to  spend  the  summer  with  her  people  in  Finland  and  had  promised 
Jessie  a  possible  uprising  against  Russia.  Mrs.  Whitehead  was  hesitating 
but  had  practically  consented.  There  was  an  older  son  North  who  was 
away  at  the  time. 

Then  suddenly,  as  I  remember,  there  were  the  conferences  to  prevent 
the  war,  Lord  Grey  and  the  russian  minister  of  foreign  affairs.  And  then 
before  anything  further  could  happen  the  ultimatum  to  France.  Ger- 
trude Stein  and  I  were  completely  miserable  as  was  Evelyn  Whitehead, 
who  had  french  blood  and  who  had  been  raised  in  France  and  had  strong 
french  sympathies.  Then  came  the  days  of  the  invasion  of  Belgium  and 
I  can  still  hear  Doctor  Whitehead's  gentle  voice  reading  the  papers  out 
loud  and  then  all  of  them  talking  about  the  destruction  of  Louvain  and 
how  they  must  help  the  brave  little  belgians.  Gertrude  Stein  desperately 
unhappy  said  to  me,  where  is  Louvain.  Don't  you  know,  I  said.  No,  she 
said,  nor  do  I  care,  but  where  is  it. 

Our  week  end  was  over  and  we  told  Mrs.  Whitehead  that  we  must 
leave.  But  you  cannot  get  back  to  Paris  now,  she  said.  No,  we  answered, 
but  we  can  stay  in  London.  Oh  no,  she  said,  you  must  stay  with  us  until 
you  can  get  back  to  Paris.  She  was  very  sweet  and  we  were  very  un- 
happy and  we  liked  them  and  they  liked  us  and  we  agreed  to  stay.  And 
then  to  our  infinite  relief  England  came  into  the  war. 

We  had  to  go  to  London  to  get  our  trunks,  to  cable  to  people  in 
America  and  to  draw  money,  and  Mrs.  Whitehead  wished  to  go  in  to 
see  if  she  and  her  daughter  could  do  anything  to  help  the  belgians.  I  re- 
member that  trip  so  well.  There  seemed  so  many  people  about  every- 
where, although  the  train  was  not  overcrowded,  but  all  the  stations  even 
little  country  ones,  were  filled  with  people,  not  people  at  all  troubled  but 
just  a  great  many  people.  At  the  junction  where  we  were  to  change 
trains  we  met  Lady  Astley,  a  friend  of  Myra  Edgerly's  whom  we  had 
met  in  Paris.  Oh  how  do  you  do,  she  said  in  a  cheerful  loud  voice,  I  am 
going  to  London  to  say  goodbye  to  my  son.  Is  he  going  away,  we  said 
politely.  Oh  yes,  she  said,  he  is  in  the  guards  you  know,  and  is  leaving  to- 
night for  France. 

In  London  everything  was  difficult.  Gertrude  Stein's  letter  of  credit 
was  on  a  french  bank  but  mine  luckily  small  was  on  a  California  one.  I 
say  luckily  small  because  the  banks  would  not  give  large  sums  but  my 


THE  WAR  123 

letter  of  credit  was  so  small  and  so  almost  used  up  that  they  without  hesi- 
tation gave  me  all  that  there  was  left  of  it. 

Gertrude  Stein  cabled  to  her  cousin  in  Baltimore  to  send  her  money, 
we  gathered  in  our  trunks,  we  met  Evelyn  Whitehead  at  the  train  and 
we  went  back  with  her  to  Lockridge.  It  was  a  relief  to  get  back.  We  ap- 
preciated her  kindness  because  to  have  been  at  a  hotel  in  London  at  that 
moment  would  have  been  too  dreadful. 

Then  one  day  followed  another  and  it  is  hard  to  remember  just  what 
happened.  North  Whitehead  was  away  and  Mrs.  Whitehead  was  ter- 
ribly worried  lest  he  should  rashly  enlist.  She  must  see  him.  So  they 
telegraphed  to  him  to  come  at  once.  He  came.  She  had  been  quite  right. 
He  had  immediately  gone  to  the  nearest  recruiting  station  to  enlist  and 
luckily  there  had  been  so  many  in  front  of  him  that  the  office  closed  be- 
fore he  was  admitted.  She  immediately  went  to  London  to  see  Kitchener. 
Doctor  Whitehead's  brother  was  a  bishop  in  India  and  he  had  in  his 
younger  days  known  Kitchener  very  intimately.  Mrs.  Whitehead  had 
this  introduction  and  North  was  given  a  commission.  She  came  home 
much  relieved.  North  was  to  join  in  three  days  but  in  the  meantime 
he  must  learn  to  drive  a  motor  car.  The  three  days  passed  very  quickly 
and  North  was  gone.  He  left  immediately  for  France  and  without  much 
equipment.  And  then  came  the  time  of  waiting. 

Evelyn  Whitehead  was  very  busy  planning  war  work  and  helping 
every  one  and  I  as  far  as  possible  helped  her.  Gertrude  Stein  and  Doctor 
Whitehead  walked  endlessly  around  the  country.  They  talked  of  phi- 
losophy and  history,  it  was  during  these  days  that  Gertrude  Stein  realised 
how  completely  it  was  Doctor  Whitehead  and  not  Russell  who  had  had 
the  ideas  for  their  great  book.  Doctor  Whitehead,  the  gentlest  and  most 
simply  generous  of  human  beings  never  claimed  anything  for  himself 
and  enormously  admired  anyone  who  was  brilliant,  and  Russell  un- 
doubtedly was  brilliant. 

Gertrude  Stein  used  to  come  back  and  tell  me  about  these  walks  and 
the  country  still  the  same  as  in  the  days  of  Chaucer,  with  the  green  paths 
of  the  early  britons  that  could  still  be  seen  in  long  stretches,  and  the  triple 
rainbows  of  that  strange  summer.  They  used,  Doctor  Whitehead  and 
Gertrude  Stein,  to  have  long  conversations  with  game-keepers  and  mole- 
catchers.  The  mole-catcher  had  said,  but  sir,  England  has  never  been  in 
a  war  but  that  she  has  been  victorious.  Doctor  Whitehead  turned  to  Ger- 


124  THE  AUT6BIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

trude  Stein  with  a  gentle  smile.  I  think  we  may  say  so,  he  said.  The 
game-keeper,  when  Doctor  Whitehead  seemed  discouraged  said  to  him, 
but  Doctor  Whitehead,  England  is  the  predominant  nation,  is  she  not. 
I  hope  she  is,  yes  I  hope  she  is,  replied  Doctor  Whitehead  gently. 

The  germans  were  getting  nearer  and  nearer  Paris.  One  day  Doctor 
Whitehead  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  they  were  just  going  through  a  rough 
little  wood  and  he  was  helping  her,  have  you  any  copies  of  your  writings 
or  are  they  all  in  Paris.  They  are  all  in  Paris,  she  said.  I  did  not  like  to 
ask,  said  Doctor  Whitehead,  but  I  have  been  worrying. 

The  germans  were  getting  nearer  and  nearer  Paris  and  the  last  day 
Gertrude  Stein  could  not  leave  her  room,  she  sat  and  mourned.  She  loved 
Paris,  she  thought  neither  of  manuscripts  nor  of, pictures,  she  thought 
only  of  Paris  and  she  was  desolate.  I  came  up  to  her  room,  I  called  out, 
it  is  alright  Paris  is  saved,  the  germans  are  in  retreat.  She  turned  away 
and  said,  don't  tell  me  these  things.  But  it's  true,  I  said,  it  is  true.  And 
then  we  wept  together. 

The  first  description  that  any  one  we  knew  received  in  England  of 
the  battle  of  the  Marne  came  in  a  letter  to  Gertrude  Stein  from  Mildred 
Aldrich.  It  was  practically  the  first  letter  of  her  book  the  Hilltop  on  the 
Marne.  We  were  delighted  to  receive  it,  to  know  that  Mildred  was  safe, 
and  to  know  all  about  it.  It  was  passed  around  and  everybody  in  the 
neighbourhood  read  it. 

Later  when  we  returned  to  Paris  we  had  two  other  descriptions  of  the 
battle  of  the  Marne.  I  had  an  old  school  friend  from  California,  Nellie 
Jacot  who  lived  in  Boulogne-sur-Seine  and  I  was  very  worried  about  her. 
I  telegraphed  to  her  and  she  telegraphed  back  characteristically,  Nulle- 
ment  en  danger  ne  t'inquiete  pas,  there  is  no  danger  don't  worry.  It  was 
Nellie  who  used  to  call  Picasso  in  the  early  days  a  good-looking  boot- 
black and  used  to  say  of  Fernande,  she  is  alright  but  I  don't  see  why 
you  bother  about  her.  It  was  also  Nellie  who  made  Matisse  blush  by 
cross-questioning  him  about  the  different  ways  he  saw  Madame  Matisse, 
how  she  looked  to  him  as  a  wife  and  how  she  looked  to  him  as  a  picture, 
and  how  he  could  change  from  one  to  the  other.  It  was  also  Nellie  who 
told  the  story  which  Gertrude  Stein  loved  to  quote,  of  a  young  man  who 
once  said  to  her,  I  love  you  Nellie,  Nellie  is  your  name,  isn't  it.  It  was 
also  Nellie  who  when  we  came  back  from  England  and  we  said  that 
everybody  had  been  so  kind,  said,  oh  yes,  I  know  that  kind. 

Nellie  described  the  battle  of  the  Marne  to  us.  You  know,  she  said,  I 


THE  WAR  125 

always  come  to  town  once  a  week  to  shop  and  I  always  bring  my  maid. 
We  come  in  in  the  street  car  because  it  is  difficult  to  get  a  taxi  in  Boulogne 
and  we  go  back  in  a  taxi.  Well  we  came  in  as  usual  and  didn't  notice 
anything  and  when  we  had  finished  our  shopping  and  had  had  our  tea 
we  stood  on  a  corner  to  get  a  taxi.  We  stopped  several  and  when  they 
heard  where  we  wanted  to  go  they  drove  on.  I  know  that  sometimes  taxi 
drivers  don't  like  to  go  out  to  Boulogne  so  I  said  to  Marie  tell  them  we 
will  give  them  a  big  tip  if  they  will  go.  So  she  stopped  another  taxi  with 
an  old  driver  and  I  said  to  him,  I  will  give  you  a  very  big  tip  to  take  us 
out  to  Boulogne.  Ah,  said  he  laying  his  finger  on  his  nose,  to  my  great 
regret  madame  it  is  impossible,  no  taxi  can  leave  the  city  limits  to-day. 
Why,  I  asked.  He  winked  in  answer  and  drove  off.  We  had  to  go  back 
to  Boulogne  in  a  street  car.  Of  course  we  understood  later,  when  we 
heard  about  Gallieni  and  the  taxis,  said  Nellie  and  added,  and  that  was 
the  battle  of  the  Marne. 

Another  description  of  the  battle  of  the  Marne  when  we  first  came 
back  to  Paris  was  from  Alfy  Maurer.  I  was  sitting,  said  Alfy  at  a  cafe 
and  Paris  was  pale,  if  you  know  what  I  mean,  said  Alfy,  it  was  like  a 
pale  absinthe.  Well  I  was  sitting  there  and  then  I  noticed  lots  of  horses 
pulling  lots  of  big  trucks  going  slowly  by  and  there  were  some  soldiers 
with  them  and  on  the  boxes  was  written  Banque  de  France.  That  was 
the  gold  going  away  just  like  that,  said  Alfy,  before  the  battle  of  the 
Marne. 

In  those  dark  days  of  waiting  in  England  of  course  a  great  many  things 
happened.  There  were  a  great  many  people  coming  and  going  in  the 
Whiteheads'  home  and  there  was  of  course  plenty  of  discussion.  First 
there  was  Lytton  Strachey.  He  lived  in  a  little  house  not  far  from  Lock- 
ridge. 

He  came  one  evening  to  see  Mrs.  Whitehead.  He  was  a  thin  sallow 
man  with  a  silky  beard  and  a  faint  high  voice.  We  had  met  him  the  year 
before  when  we  had  been  invited  to  meet  George  Moore  at  the  house 
of  Miss  Ethel  Sands.  Gertrude  Stein  and  George  Moore,  who  looked 
very  like  a  prosperous  Mellins  Food  baby,  had  not  been  interested  in 
each  other.  Lytton  Strachey  and  I  talked  together  about  Picasso  and  the 
russian  ballet. 

He  came  in  this  evening  and  he  and  Mrs.  Whitehead  discussed  the 
possibility  of  rescuing  Lytton  Strachey 's  sister  who  was  lost  in  Germany. 
She  suggested  that  he  apply  to  a  certain  person  who  could  help  him.  But, 


126  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

said  Lytton  Strachey  faintly,  I  have  never  met  him.  Yes,  said  Mrs.  White- 
head,  but  you  might  write  to  him  and  ask  to  see  him.  Not,  replied  Lytton 
Strachey  faintly,  if  I  have  never  met  him. 

Another  person  who  turned  up  during  that  week  was  Bertrand  Rus- 
sell. He  came  to  Lockridge  the  day  North  Whitehead  left  for  the  front. 
He  was  a  pacifist  and  argumentative  and  although  they  were  very  old 
friends  Doctor  and  Mrs.  Whitehead  did  not  think  they  could  bear  hear- 
ing his  views  just  then.  He  came  and  Gertrude  Stein,  to  divert  every- 
body's mind  from  the  burning  question  of  war  or  peace,  introduced  the 
subject  of  education.  This  caught  Russell  and  he  explained  all  the  weak- 
nesses of  the  american  system  of  education,  particularly  their  neglect  of 
the  study  of  greek,  Gertrude  Stein  replied  that  of  cpurse  England  which 
was  an  island  needed  Greece  which  was  or  might  have  been  an  island. 
At  any  rate  greek  was  essentially  an  island  culture,  while  America 
needed  essentially  the  culture  of  a  continent  which  was  of  necessity 
latin.  This  argument  fussed  Mr.  Russell,  he  became  very  eloquent.  Ger- 
trude Stein  then  became  very  earnest  and  gave  a  long  discourse  on  the 
value  of  greek  to  the  english,  aside  from  its  being  an  island,  and  the  lack 
of  value  of  greek  culture  for  the  arnericans  based  upon  the  psychology 
of  americans  as  different  from  the  psychology  of  the  english.  She  grew 
very  eloquent  on  the  disembodied  abstract  quality  of  the  american  char- 
acter and  cited  examples,  mingling  automobiles  with  Emerson,  and  all 
proving  that  they  did  not  need  greek,  in  a  way  that  fussed  Russell  more 
and  more  and  kept  everybody  occupied  until  everybody  went  to  bed. 

There  were  many  discussions  in  those  days.  The  bishop,  the  brother 
of  Doctor  Whitehead  and  his  family  came  to  lunch.  They  all  talked  con- 
stantly about  how  England  had  come  into  the  war  to  save  Belgium.  At 
last  my  nerves  could  bear  it  no  longer  and  I  blurted  out,  why  do  you 
say  that,  why  do  you  not  say  that  you  are  fighting  for  England,  I  do  not 
consider  it  a  disgrace  to  fight  for  one's  country. 

Mrs.  Bishop,  the  bishop's  wife  was  very  funny  on  this  occasion.  She 
said  solemnly  to  Gertrude  Stein,  Miss  Stein  you  are  I  understand  an  im- 
portant person  in  Paris.  I  think  it  would  come  very  well  from  a  neutral 
like  yourself  to  suggest  to  the  french  government  that  they  give  us 
Pondichery.  It  would  be  very  useful  to  us.  Gertrude  Stein  replied  po- 
litely that  to  her  great  regret  her  importance  such  as  it  was  was 
among  painters  and  writers  and  not  with  politicians.  But  that,  said  Mrs. 
Bishop,  would  make  no  difference.  You  should  I  think  suggest  to  the 


THE  WAR  127 

french  government  that  they  give  us  Pondichery.  After  lunch  Gertrude 
Stein  said  to  me  under  her  breath,  where  the  hell  is  Pondichery. 

Gertrude  Stein  used  to  get  furious  when  the  english  all  talked  about 
german  organisation.  She  used  to  insist  that  the  germans  had  no  or- 
ganisation, they  had  method  but  no  organisation.  Don't  you  understand 
the  difference,  she  used  to  say  angrily,  any  two  americans,  any  twenty 
americans,  any  millions  of  americans  can  organise  themselves  to  do 
something  but  germans  cannot  organise  themselves  to  do  anything,  they 
can  formulate  a  method  and  this  method  can  be  put  upon  them  but  that 
isn't  organisation.  The  germans,  she  used  to  insist,  are  not  modern,  they 
are  a  backward  people  who  have  made  a  method  of  what  we  conceive 
as  organisation,  can't  you  see.  They  cannot  therefore  possibly  win  this 
war  because  they  are  not  modern. 

Then  another  thing  that  used  to  annoy  us  dreadfully  was  the  english 
statement  that  the  germans  in  America  would  turn  America  against  the 
allies.  Don't  be  silly,  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  say  to  any  and  all  of  them, 
if  you  do  not  realise  that  the  fundamental  sympathy  in  America  is  with 
France  and  England  and  could  never  be  with  a  mediaeval  country  like 
Germany,  you  cannot  understand  America.  We  are  republican,  she  used 
to  say  with  energy,  profoundly  intensely  and  completely  a  republic  and 
a  republic  can  have  everything  in  common  with  France  and  a  great  deal 
in  common  with  England  but  whatever  its  form  of  government  nothing 
in  common  with  Germany.  How  often  I  have  heard  her  then  and  since 
explain  that  americans  are  republicans  living  in  a  republic  which  is  so 
much  a  republic  that  it  could  never  be  anything  else. 

The  long  summer  wore  on.  It  was  beautiful  weather  and  beautiful 
country,  and  Doctor  Whitehead  and  Gertrude  Stein  never  ceased  wan- 
dering around  in  it  and  talking  about  all  things. 

From  time  to  time  we  went  to  London.  We  went  regularly  to  Cook's 
office  to  know  when  we  might  go  back  to  Paris  and  they  always  answered 
not  yet.  Gertrude  Stein  went  to  see  John  Lane.  He  was  terribly  upset. 
He  was  passionately  patriotic.  He  said  of  course  he  was  doing  nothing 
at  present  but  publishing  war-books  but  soon  very  soon  things  would  be 
different  or  perhaps  the  war  would  be  over. 

Gertrude  Stein's  cousin  and  my  father  sent  us  money  by  the  United 
States  cruiser  Tennessee.  We  went  to  get  it.  We  were  each  one  put  on 
the  scale  and  our  heights  measured  and  then  they  gave  the  money  to 
us.  How,  said  we  to  one  another,  can  a  cousin  who  has  not  seen  you  in 


128  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

ten  years  and  a  father  who  has  not  seen  me  for  six  years  possibly  know 
our  heights  and  our  weights.  It  had  always  been  a  puzzle.  Four  years 
ago  Gertrude  Stein's  cousin  came  to  Paris  and  the  first  thing  she  said 
to  him  was,  Julian  how  did  you  know  my  weight  and  height  when  you 
sent  me  money  by  the  Tennessee.  Did  I  know  it,  he  said.  Well,  she  said, 
at  any  rate  they  had  written  it  down  that  you  did.  I  cannot  remember 
of  course,  he  said,  but  if  any  one  were  to  ask  me  now  I  would  naturally 
send  to  Washington  for  a  copy  of  your  passport  and  I  probably  did  that 
then.  And  so  was  the  mystery  solved. 

We  also  had  to  go  to  the  american  embassy  to  get  temporary  passports 
to  go  back  to  Paris.  We  had  no  papers,  nobody  had  any  papers  in  those 
days.  Gertrude  Stein  as  a  matter  of  fact  had  what  they  called  in  Paris  a 
papier  de  matriculation  which  stated  that  she  was  an  american  and  a 
french  resident. 

The  embassy  was  very  full  of  not  very  american  looking  citizens  wait- 
ing their  turn.  Finally  we  were  ushered  in  to  a  very  tired  looking  young 
american.  Gertrude  Stein  remarked  upon  the  number  of  not  very  ameri- 
can looking  citizens  that  were  waiting.  The  young  american  sighed. 
They  are  easier,  he  said,  because  they  have  papers,  it  is  only  the  native 
born  american  who  has  no  papers.  Well  what  do  you  do  about  them, 
asked  Gertrude  Stein.  We  guess,  he  said,  and  we  hope  we  guess  right. 
And  now,  said  he,  will  you  take  the  oath.  Oh  dear,  he  said,  I  have  said  it 
so  often  I  have  forgotten  it. 

By  the  fifteenth  of  October  Cook's  said  we  could  go  back  to  Paris.  Mrs. 
Whitehead  was  to  go  with  us.  North,  her  son,  had  left  without  an  over- 
coat, and  she  had  secured  one  and  she  was  afraid  he  would  not  get  it 
until  much  later  if  she  sent  it  the  ordinary  way.  She  arranged  to  go  to 
Paris  and  deliver  it  to  him  herself  or  find  some  one  who  would  take  it 
to  him  directly.  She  had  papers  from  the  war  office  and  Kitchener  and 
we  started. 

I  remember  the  leaving  London  very  little,  I  cannot  even  remember 
whether  it  was  day-light  or  not  but  it  must  have  been  because  when 
we  were  on  the  channel  boat  it  was  day-light.  The  boat  was  crowded. 
There  were  quantities  of  belgian  soldiers  and  officers  escaped  from  Ant- 
werp, all  with  tired  eyes.  It  was  our  first  experience  of  the  tired  but 
watchful  eyes  of  soldiers.  We  finally  were  able  to  arrange  a  seat  for  Mrs. 
Whitehead  who  had  been  ill  and  soon  we  were  in  France.  Mrs.  White- 
head's  papers  were  so  overpowering  that  there  were  no  delays  and  soon 


THE  WAR  129 

we  were  in  the  train  and  about  ten  o'clock  at  night  we  were  in  Paris.  We 
took  a  taxi  and  drove  through  Paris,  beautiful  and  unviolated,  to  the 
rue  de  Fleurus.  We  were  once  more  at  home. 

Everybody  who  had  seemed  so  far  away  came  to  see  us.  Alfy  Maurer 
described  being  on  the  Marne  at  his  favourite  village,  he  always  fished 
the  Marne,  and  the  mobilisation  locomotive  coming  and  the  germans 
were  coming  and  he  was  so  frightened  and  he  tried  to  get  a  conveyance 
and  finally  after  terrific  efforts  he  succeeded  and  got  back  to  Paris.  As 
he  left  Gertrude  Stein  went  with  him  to  the  door  and  came  back  smiling. 
Mrs.  Whitehead  said  with  some  constraint,  Gertrude  you  have  always 
spoken  so  warmly  of  Alfy  Maurer  but  how  can  you  like  a  man  who 
shows  himself  not  only  selfish  but  a  coward  and  at  a  time  like  this.  He 
thought  only  of  saving  himself  and  he  after  all  was  a  neutral.  Gertrude 
Stein  burst  out  laughing.  You  foolish  woman,  she  said,  didn't  you  un- 
derstand, of  course  Alfy  had  his  girl  with  him  and  he  was  scared  to  death 
lest  she  should  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  germans. 

There  were  not  many  people  in  Paris  just  then  and  we  liked  it  and  we 
wandered  around  Paris  and  it  was  so  nice  to  be  there,  wonderfully  nice. 
Soon  Mrs.  Whitehead  found  means  of  sending  her  son's  coat  to  him  and 
went  back  to  England  and  we  settled  down  for  the  winter. 

Gertrude  Stein  sent  copies  of  her  manuscripts  to  friends  in  New  York 
to  keep  for  her.  We  hoped  that  all  danger  was  over  but  still  it  seemed 
better  to  do  so  and  there  were  Zeppelins  to  come.  London  had  been  com- 
pletely darkened  at  night  before  we  left.  Paris  continued  to  have  its  usual 
street  lights  until  January. 

How  it  all  happened  I  do  not  at  all  remember  but  it  was  through  Carl 
Van  Vechten  and  had  something  to  do  with  the  Nortons,  but  at  any 
rate  there  was  a  letter  from  Donald  Evans  proposing  to  publish  three 
manuscripts  to  make  a  small  book  and  would  Gertrude  Stein  suggest 
a  title  for  them.  Of  these  three  manuscripts  two  had  been  written  during 
our  first  trip  into  Spain  and  Food,  Rooms  etcetera,  immediately  on  our 
return.  They  were  the  beginning,  as  Gertrude  Stein  would  say,  of  mixing 
the'  outside  with  the  inside.  Hitherto  she  had  been  concerned  with  seri- 
ousness and  the  inside  of  things,  in  these  studies  she  began  to  describe 
the  inside  as  seen  from  the  outside.  She  was  awfully  pleased  at  the  idea 
of  these  three  things  being  published,  and  immediately  consented,  and 
suggested  the  title  of  Tender  Buttons.  Donald  Evans  called  his  firm  the 
Claire  Marie  and  he  sent  over  a  contract  just  like  any  other  contract. 


130  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

We  took  it  for  granted  that  there  was  a  Claire  Marie  but  there  evidently 
was  not.  There  were  printed  of  this  edition  I  forget  whether  it  was  seven 
hundred  and  fifty  or  a  thousand  copies  but  at  any  rate  it  was  a  very 
charming  little  book  and  Gertrude  Stein  was  enormously  pleased,  and 
it,  as  every  one  knows,  had  an  enormous  influence  on  all  young  writers 
and  started  ofl  columnists  in  the  newspapers  of  the  whole  country  on 
their  long  campaign  of  ridicule.  I  must  say  that  when  the  columnists  are 
really  funny,  and  they  quite  often  are,  Gertrude  Stein  chuckles  and  reads 
them  aloud  to  me. 

In  the  meantime  the  dreary  winter  of  fourteen  and  fifteen  went  on. 
One  night,  I  imagine  it  must  have  been  about  the  end  of  January,  I  had 
as  was  and  is  my  habit  gone  to  bed  very  early,  and  Gertrude  Stein  was 
down  in  the  studio  working,  as  was  her  habit.  Suddenly  I  heard  her  call 
me  gently.  What  is  it,  I  said.  Oh  nothing,  said  she,  but  perhaps  if  you 
don't  mind  putting  on  something  warm  and  coming  downstairs  I  think 
perhaps  it  would  be  better.  What  is  it,  I  said,  a  revolution.  The  concierges 
and  the  wives  of  the  concierges  were  all  always  talking  about  a  revolu- 
tion. The  french  are  so  accustomed  to  revolutions,  they  have  had  so 
many,  that  when  anything  happens  they  immediately  think  and  say, 
revolution.  Indeed  Gertrude  Stein  once  said  rather  impatiently  to  some 
french  soldiers  when  they  said  something  about  a  revolution,  you  are 
silly,  you  have  had  one  perfectly  good  revolution  and  several  not  quite 
so  good  ones;  for  an  intelligent  people  it  seems  to  me  foolish  to  be  always 
thinking  of  repeating  yourselves.  They  looked  very  sheepish  and  said, 
bien  sur  mademoiselle,  in  other  words,  sure  you're  right. 

Well  I  too  said  when  she  woke  me,  is  it  a  revolution  and  are  there 
soldiers.  No,  she  said,  not  exactly.  Well  what  is  it,  said  I  impatiently.  I 
don't  quite  know,  she  answered,  but  there  has  been  an  alarm.  Anyway 
you  had  better  come.  I  started  to  turn  on  the  light.  No,  she  said,  you  had 
better  not.  Give  me  your  hand  and  I  will  get  you  down  and  you  can  go 
to  sleep  down  stairs  on  the  couch.  I  came.  It  was  very  dark.  I  sat  down 
on  the  couch  and  then  1  said,  I'm  sure  I  don't  know  what  is  the  matter 
with  me  but  my  knees  are  knocking  together.  Gertrude  Stein  burst  out 
laughing,  wait  a  minute,  I  will  get  you  a  blanket,  she  said.  No  don't  leave 
me,  I  said.  She  managed  to  find  something  to  cover  me  and  then  there 
was  a  loud  boom,  then  several  more.  It  was  a  soft  noise  and  then  there 
was  the  sound  of  horns  blowing  in  the  streets  and  then  we  knew  it  was 
all  over.  We  lighted  the  lights  and  went  to  bed. 


THE  WAR  131 

I  must  say  I  would  not  have  believed  it  was  true  that  knees  knocked 
together  as  described  in  poetry  and  prose  if  it  had  not  happened  to  me. 

The  next  time  there  was  a  Zeppelin  alarm  and  it  was  not  very  long 
after  this  first  one,  Picasso  and  Eve  were  dining  with  us.  By  this  time 
we  knew  that  the  two-story  building  of  the  atelier  was  no  more  pro- 
tection than  the  roof  of  the  little  pavilion  under  which  we  slept  and  the 
concierge  had  suggested  that  we  should  go  into  her  room  where  at  least 
we  would  have  six  stories  over  us.  Eve  was  not  very  well  these  days  and 
and  fearful  so  we  all  went  into  the  concierge's  room.  Even  Jeanne  Poule 
the  Breton  servant  who  had  succeeded  Helene,  came  too.  Jeanne  soon 
was  bored  with  this  precaution  and  so  in  spite  of  all  remonstrance,  she 
went  back  to  her  kitchen,  lit  her  light,  in  spite  of  the  regulations,  and 
proceeded  to  wash  the  dishes.  We  soon  too  got  bored  with  the  concierge's 
loge  and  went  back  to  the  atelier.  We  put  a  candle  under  the  table  so 
that  it  would  not  make  much  light,  Eve  and  I  tried  to  sleep  and  Picasso 
and  Gertrude  Stein  talked  until  two  in  the  morning  when  the  all's  clear 
sounded  and  they  went  home. 

Picasso  and  Eve  were  living  these  days  on  the  rue  Schcclcher  in  a 
rather  sumptuous  studio  apartment  that  looked  over  the  cemetery.  It  was 
not  very  gay.  The  only  excitement  were  the  letters  from  Guillaume 
Apollinaire  who  was  falling  off  of  horses  in  the  endeavour  to  become  an 
artilleryman.  The  only  other  intimates  at  that  time  were  a  russian  whom 
they  called  G.  Apostrophe  and  his  sister  the  baron ne.  They  bought  all 
the  Rousseaus  that  were  in  Rousseau's  atelier  when  he  died.  They  had 
an  apartment  in  the  boulevard  Raspail  above  Victor  Hugo's  tree  and 
they  were  not  unamusing.  Picasso  learnt  the  russian  alphabet  from  them 
and  began  putting  it  into  some  of  his  pictures. 

It  was  not  a  very  cheerful  winter.  People  came  in  and  out,  new  ones 
and  old  ones.  Ellen  La  Motte  turned  up,  she  was  very  heroic  but  gun  shy. 
She  wanted  to  go  to  Servia  and  Emily  Chadbourne  wanted  to  go  with 
her  but  they  did  not  go. 

Gertrude  Stein  wrote  a  little  novelette  about  this  event. 

Ellen  La  Motte  collected  a  set  of  souvenirs  of  the  war  for  her  cousin 
Dupont  de  Nemours.  The  stories  of  how  she  got  them  were  diverting. 
Everybody  brought  you  souvenirs  in  those  days,  steel  arrows  that  pierced 
horses'  heads,  pieces  of  shell,  ink-wells  made  out  of  pieces  of  shell,  hel- 
mets, some  one  even  offered  us  a  piece  of  a  Zeppelin  or  an  aeroplane, 
I  forget  which,  but  we  declined.  It  was  a  strange  winter  and  nothing 


132  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

and  everything  happened.  If  I  remember  rightly  it  was  at  this  time  that 
some  one,  I  imagine  it  was  Apollinaire  on  leave,  gave  a  concert  and  a 
reading  of  Blaise  Cedrars'  poems.  It  was  then  that  I  first  heard  mentioned 
and  first  heard  the  music  of  Erik  Satie.  I  remember  this  took  place  in 
some  one's  atelier  and  the  place  was  crowded.  It  was  in  these  days  too  that 
the  friendship  betwefen  Gertrude  Stein  and  Juan  Gris  began.  He  was 
living  in  the  rue  Ravignan  in  the  studio  where  Salmon  had  been  shut 
up  when  he  ate  my  yellow  fantaisie. 

We  used  to  go  there  quite  often.  Juan  was  having  a  hard  time,  no  one 
was  buying  pictures  and  the  french  artists  were  not  in  want  because  they 
were  at  the  front  and  their  wives  or  their  mistresses  if  they  had  been 
together  a  certain  number  of  years  were  receiving  an  allowance.  There 
was  one  bad  case,  Herbin,  a  nice  little  man  but  so  tiny  that  the  army  dis- 
missed him.  He  said  ruefully  the  pack  he  had  to  carry  weighed  as  much 
as  he  did  and  it  was  no  use,  he  could  not  manage  it.  He  was  returned 
home  inapt  for  service  and  he  came  near  starving.  I  don't  know  who 
told  us  about  him,  he  was  one  of  the  early  simple  earnest  cubists.  Luckily 
Gertrude  Stein  succeeded  in  interesting  Roger  Fry.  Roger  Fry  took  him 
and  his  painting  over  to  England  where  he  made  and  I  imagine  still  has 
a  considerable  reputation. 

Juan  Gris'  case  was  more  difficult.  Juan  was  in  those  days  a  tormented 
and  not  particularly  sympathetic  character.  He  was  very  melancholy  and 
effusive  and  as  always  clear  sighted  and  intellectual.  He  was  at  that  time 
painting  almost  entirely  in  black  and  white  and  his  pictures  were  very 
sombre.  Kahnweiler  who  had  befriended  him  was  an  exile  in  Switzer- 
land, Juan's  sister  in  Spain  was  able  to  help  him  only  a  little.  His  situa- 
tion was  desperate. 

It  was  just  at  this  time  that  the  picture  dealer  who  afterwards,  as  the 
expert  in  the  Kahnweiler  sale  said  he  was  going  to  kill  cubism,  under- 
took to  save  cubism  and  he  made  contracts  with  all  the  cubists  who  were 
still  free  to  paint.  Among  them  was  Juan  Gris  and  for  the  moment  he 
was  saved. 

As  soon  as  we  were  back  in  Paris  we  went  to  see  Mildred  Aldrich.  She 
was  within  the  military  area  so  we  imagined  we  would  have  to  have  a 
special  permit  to  go  and  see  her.  We  went  to  the  police  station  of  our 
quarter  and  asked  them  what  we  should  do.  He  said  what  papers  have 
you.  We  have  american  passports,,  french  matriculation  papers,  said  Ger- 
trude Stein  taking  out  a  pocket  full.  He  looked  at  them  all  and  said  and 


THE  WAR  133 

what  is  this,  of  another  yellow  paper.  That,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  is  a  re- 
ceipt from  my  bank  for  the  money  I  have  just  deposited.  I  think,  said  he 
solemnly,  I  would  take  that  along  too.  I  think,  he  added,  with  all  those 
you  will  not  have  any  trouble. 

We  did  not  as  a  matter  of  fact  have  to  show  any  one  any  papers.  We 
stayed  with  Mildred  several  days. 

She  was  much  the  most  cheerful  person  we  knew  that  winter.  She  had 
been  through  the  battle  of  the  Marne,  she  had  had  the  Uhlans  in  the 
woods  below  her,  she  had  watched  the  battle  going  on  below  her  and 
she  had  become  part  of  the  country-side.  We  teased  her  and  told  her  she 
was  beginning  to  look  like  a  french  peasant  and  she  did,  in  a  funny  kind 
of  way,  born  and  bred  new  englander  that  she  was.  It  was  always  aston- 
ishing that  the  inside  of  her  little  french  peasant  house  with  french  fur- 
niture, french  paint  and  a  french  servant  and  even  a  french  poodle, 
looked  completely  american.  We  saw  her  several  times  that  winter. 

At  last  the  spring  came  and  we  were  ready  to  go  away  for  a  bit.  Our 
friend  William  Cook  after  nursing  a  while  in  the  american  hospital  for 
french  wounded  had  gone  again  to  Palma  de  Mallorca.  Cook  who  had 
always  earned  his  living  by  painting  was  finding  it  difficult  to  get  on  and 
he  had  retired  to  Palma  where  in  those  days  when  the  Spanish  exchange 
was  very  low  one  lived  extremely  well  for  a  few  francs  a  day. 

We  decided  we  w6uld  go  to  Palma  too  and  forget  the  war  a  little.  We 
had  only  the  temporary  passports  that  had  been  given  to  us  in  London 
so  we  went  to  the  embassy  to  get  permanent  ones  with  which  we  might 
go  to  Spain.  We  were  first  interviewed  by  a  kindly  old  gentleman  most 
evidently  not  in  the  diplomatic  service.  Impossible,  he  said,  why,  said 
he,  look  at  me,  I  have  lived  in  Paris  for  forty  years  and  come  of  a  long 
line  of  americans  and  I  have  no  passport.  No,  he  said,  you  can  have  a 
passport  to  go  to  America  or  you  can  stay  in  France  without  a  passport. 
Gertrude  Stein  insisted  upon  seeing  one  of  the  secretaries  of  the  embassy. 
We  saw  a  flushed  reddish-headed  one.  He  told  us  exactly  the  same  thing. 
Gertrude  Stein  listened  quietly.  She  then  said,  but  so  and  so  who  is 
exactly  in  my  position,  a  native  born  american,  has  lived  the  same  length 
of  time  in  Europe,  is  a  writer  and  has  no  intention  of  returning  to  Amer- 
ica at  present,  has  just  received  a  regular  passport  from  your  department. 
I  think,  said  the  young  man  still  more  flushed,  there  must  be  some  error. 
It  is  very  simple,  replied  Gertrude  Stein,  to  verify  it  by  looking  the  mat- 
ter up  in  your  records.  He  disappeared  and  presently  came  back  and  said, 


134  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

yes  you  are  quite  correct  but  you  see  it  was  a  very  special  case.  There  can 
be,  said  Gertrude  Stein  severely,  no  privilege  extended  to  one  american 
citizen  which  is  not  to  be,  given  similar  circumstances,  accorded  to  any 
,other  american  citizen.  He  once  more  disappeared  and  came  back  and 
said,  yes  yes  now  may  I  go  through  the  preliminaries.  He  then  explained 
that  they  had  orders  to  give  out  as  few  passports  as  possible  but  if  any 
one  really  wanted  one  why  of  course  it  was  quite  alright.  We  got  ours 
in  record  time. 

And  we  went  to  Palma  thinking  to  spend  only  a  few  weeks  but  we 
stayed  the  winter.  First  we  went  to  Barcelona.  It  was  extraordinary  to 
see  so  many  men  on  the  streets.  I  did  not  imagine  there  could  be  so  many 
men  left  in  the  world.  One's  eyes  had  become  so  habituated  to  menless 
streets,  the  few  men  one  saw  being  in  uniform  and  therefore  not  being 
men  but  soldiers,  that  to  see  quantities  of  men  walking  up  and  down  the 
Ramblas  was  bewildering.  We  sat  in  the  hotel  window  and  looked.  I 
went  to  bed  early  and  got  up  early  and  Gertrude  Stein  went  to  bed  late 
and  got  up  late  and  so  in  a  way  we  overlapped  but  there  was  not  a  mo- 
ment whan  there  were  not  quantities  of  men  going  up  and  down  the 
Ramblas. 

We  arrived  in  Palma  once  again  and  Cook  met  us  and  arranged  every- 
thing for  us.  William  Cook  could  always  be  depended  upon.  In  those 
days  he  was  poor  but  later  when  he  had  inherited  money  and  was  well 
to  do  and  Mildred  Aldrich  had  fallen  upon  very  bad  ways  and  Gertrude 
Stein  was  not  able  to  help  any  more,  William  Cook  gave  her  a  blank 
cheque  and  said,  use  that  as  much  as  you  need  for  Mildred,  you  know 
my  mother  loved  to  read  her  books. 

William  Cook  often  disappeared  and  one  knew  nothing  of  him  and 
then  when  for  one  reason  or  another  you  needed  him  there  he  was.  He 
went  into  the  american  army  later  and  at  that  time  Gertrude  Stein  and 
myself  were  doing  war  work  for  the  American  Fund  for  French 
Wounded  and  I  had  often  to  wake  her  up  very  early.  She  and  Cook 
used  to  write  the  most  lugubrious  letters  to  each  other  about  the  un- 
pleasantness of  sunrises  met  suddenly.  Sunrises  were,  they  contended, 
alright  when  approached  slowly  from  the  night  before,  but  when  faced 
abruptly  from  the  same  morning  they  were  awful.  It  was  William  Cook 
too  who  later  on  taught  Gertrude  Stein  how  to  drive  a  car  by  teaching 
her  on  one  of  the  old  battle  of  the  Marne  taxis.  Cook  being  hard  up  had 
become  a  taxi  driver  in  Paris,  that  was  in  sixteen  and  Gertrude  Stein 


THE  WAR  135 

was  to  drive  a  car  for  the  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded.  So  on 
dark  nights  they  went  out  beyond  the  fortifications  and  the  two  of  them 
sitting  solemnly  on  the  driving  seat  of  one  of  those  old  two-cylinder 
before-the-war  Renault  taxis,  William  Cook  taught  Gertrude  Stein  how 
to  drive.  It  was  William  Cook  who  inspired  the  only  movie  Gertrude 
Stein  ever  wrote  in  english,  1  have  just  published  it  in  Operas  and  Plays 
in  the  Plain  Edition.  The  only  other  one  she  ever  wrote,  also  in  Operas 
and  Plays,  many  years  later  and  in  french,  was  inspired  by  her  white 
poodle  dog  called  Basket. 

But  to  come  back  to  Palma  de  Mallorca.  We  had  been  there  two  sum- 
mers before  and  had  liked  it  and  we  liked  it  again.  A  great  many  ameri- 
cans  seem  to  like  it  now  but  in  those  days  Cook  and  ourselves  were  the 
only  americans  to  inhabit  the  island.  There  were  a  few  english,  about 
three  families  there.  There  was  a  descendant  of  one  of  Nelson's  captains, 
a  Mrs.  Penfold,  a  sharp-tongued  elderly  lady  and  her  husband.  It  was 
she  who  said  to  young  Mark  Gilbert,  an  english  boy  of  sixteen  with 
pacifist  tendencies  who  had  at  tea  at  her  house  refused  cake,  Mark  you 
are  either  old  enough  to  fight  for  your  country  or  young  enough  to  eat 
cake.  Mark  ate  cake. 

There  were  several  french  families  there,  the  french  consul,  Monsieur 
Marchand  with  a  charming  italian  wife  whom  we  soon  came  to  know 
very  well.  It  was  he  who  was  very  much  amused  at  a  story  we  had  to 
tell  him  of  Morocco.  He  had  been  attached  to  the  french  residence  at 
Tangiers  at  the  moment  the  french  induced  Moulai  Hafid  the  then 
sultan  of  Morocco  to  abdicate.  We  had  been  in  Tangiers  at  that  time  for 
ten  days,  it  was  during  that  fiist  trip  to  Spain  when  so  much  happened 
that  was  important  to  Gertrude  Stein, 

We  had  taken  on  a  guide  Mohammed  and  Mohammed  had  taken  a 
fancy  to  us.  He  became  a  pleasant  companion  rather  than  a  guide  and 
we  used  to  take  long  walks  together  and  he  used  to  take  us  to  see  his 
cousins'  wonderfully  clean  arab  middle  class  homes  and  drink  tea.  We 
enjoyed  it  all.  He  also  told  us  all  about  politics.  He  had  been  educated 
in  Moulai  Hafid's  palace  and  he  knew  everything  that  was  happening. 
He  told  us  just  how  much  money  Moulai  Hafid  would  take  to  abdicate 
and  just  when  he  would  be  ready  to  do  it.  We  liked  these  stories  as  we 
liked  all  Mohammed's  stories  always  ending  up  with,  and  when  you 
come  back  there  will  be  street  cars  and  then  we  won't  have  to  walk  and 
that  will  be  nice.  Later  in  Spain  we  read  in  the  papers  that  it  had  all 


136  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

happened  exactly  as  Mohammed  had  said  it  would  and  we  paid  no  fur- 
ther attention.  Once  in  talking  of  our  only  visit  to  Morocco  we  told 
Monsieur  Marchand  this  story.  He  said,  yes  that  is  diplomacy,  probably 
the  only  people  in  the  world  who  were  not  arabs  who  knew  what  the 
french  government  wanted  so  desperately  to  know  were  you  two  and 
you  knew  it  quite  by  accident  and  to  you  it  was  of  no  importance. 

Life  in  Palma  was  pleasant  and  so  instead  of  travelling  any  more  that 
summer  we  decided  to  settle  down  in  Palma.  We  sent  for  our  french 
servant  Jeanne  Poule  and  with  the  aid  of  the  postman  we  found  a  little 
house  on  the  calle  de  Dos  de  Mayo  in  Terreno,  just  outside  of  Palma, 
and  we  settled  down.  We  were  very  content.  Instead  of  spending  only 
the  summer  we  stayed  until  the  following  spring.^ 

We  had  been  for  some  time  members  of  Mudie's  Library  in  London 
and  wherever  we  went  Mudie's  Library  books  came  to  us.  It  was  at  this 
time  that  Gertrude  Stein  read  aloud  to  me  all  of  Queen  Victoria's  letters 
and  she  herself  became  interested  in  missionary  autobiographies  and 
diaries.  There  were  a  great  many  in  Mudie's  Library  and  she  read  them 
all. 

It  was  during  this  stay  at  Palma  de  Mallorca  that  most  of  the  plays 
afterwards  published  in  Geography  and  Plays  were  written.  She  always 
says  that  a  certain  kind  of  landscape  induces  plays  and  the  country 
around  Terreno  certainly  did. 

We  had  a  dog,  a  mallorcan  hound,  the  hounds  slightly  crazy,  who 
dance  in  the  moonlight,  striped,  not  all  one  colour  as  the  Spanish  hound 
of  the  continent.  We  called  this  dog  Polybe  because  we  were  pleased 
with  the  articles  in  the  Figaro  signed  Polybe.  Polybe  was,  as  Monsieur 
Marchand  said,  like  an  arab,  bon  accueil  a  tout  le  monde  et  fidele  a 
personne.  He  had  an  incurable  passion  for  eating  filth  and  nothing 
would  stop  him.  We  muzzled  him  to  see  if  that  would  cure  him,  but  this 
so  outraged  the  russian  servant  of  the  english  consul  that  we  had  to  give 
it  up.  Then  he  took  to  annoying  sheep.  We  even  took  to  quarrelling  with 
Cook  about  Polybe.  Cook  had  a  fox  terrier  called  Marie-Rose  and  we 
were  convinced  fhat  Marie-Rose  led  Polybe  into  mischief  and  then  vir- 
tuously withdrew  and  let  him  take  the  blame.  Cook  was  convinced  that 
we  did  not  know  how  to  bring  up  Polybe.  Polybe  had  one  nice  trait. 
He  would  sit  in  a  chair  and  gently  smell  large  bunches  of  tube-roses  with 
which  I  always  filled  a  vase  in  the  centre  of  the  room  on  the  floor.  He 
never  tried  to  eat  them,  he  just  gently  smelled  them.  When  we  left  we 


THE  WAR  137 

left  Polybe  behind  us  in  the  care  of  one  of  the  guardians  of  the  old 
fortress  of  Belver.  When  we  saw  him  a  week  after  he  did  not  know  us 
or  his  name.  Polybe  comes  into  many  of  the  plays  Gertrude  Stein  wrote 
at  that  time. 

The  feelings  of  the  island  at  that  time  were  very  mixed  as  to  the  war. 
The  thing  that  impressed  them  the  most  was  the  amount  of  money  it 
cost.  They  could  discuss  by  the  hour,  how  much  it  cost  a  year,  a  month, 
a  week,  a  day,  an  hour  and  even  a  minute.  We  used  to  hear  them  of 
a  summer  evening,  five  million  pesetas,  a  million  pesetas,  two  million 
pesetas,  good-night,  good-night,  and  know  they  were  busy  with  their 
endless  calculations  of  the  cost  of  the  war.  As  most  of  the  men  even  those 
of  the  better  middle  classes  read  wrote  and  ciphered  with  difficulty  and 
the  women  not  at  all,  it  can  be  imagined  how  fascinating  and  endless  a 
subject  the  cost  of  the  war  was. 

One  of  our  neighbours  had  a  german  governess  and  whenever  there 
was  a  german  victory  she  hung  out  a  german  flag.  We  responded  as  well 
as  we  could,  but  alas  just  then  there  were  not  many  allied  victories.  The 
lower  classes  were  strong  for  the  allies.  The  waiter  at  the  hotel  was  al- 
ways looking  forward  to  Spain's  entry  into  the  war  on  the  side  of  the 
allies.  He  was  certain  that  the  Spanish  army  would  be  of  great  aid  as  it 
could  march  longer  on  less  food  than  any  army  in  the  world.  The  maid 
at  the  hotel  took  great  interest  in  my  knitting  for  the  soldiers.  She  said, 
of  course  madame  knits  very  slowly,  all  ladies  do.  But,  said  I  hopefully, 
if  I  knit  for  years  may  I  not  come  to  knit  quickly,  not  as  quickly  as  you 
but  quickly.  No,  said  she  firmly,  ladies  knit  slowly.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
I  did  come  to  knit  very  quickly  and  could  even  read  and  knit  quickly 
at  the  same  time. 

We  led  a  pleasant  life,  we  walked  a  great  deal  and  ate  extremely  well, 
and  were  well  amused  by  our  Breton  servant. 

She  was  patriotic  and  always  wore  the  tricolour  ribbon  around  her  hat. 
She  once  came  home  very  excited.  She  had  just  been  seeing  another 
french  servant  and  she  said,  imagine,  Marie  has  just  had  news  that  her 
brother  was  drowned  and  has  had  a  civilian  funeral.  How  did  that  hap- 
pen, I  asked  also  much  excited.  Why,  said  Jeanne,  he  had  not  yet  been 
called  to  the  army.  It  was  a  great  honour  to  have  a  brother  have  a  civil- 
ian funeral  during  the  war.  At  any  rate  it  was  rare.  Jeanne  was  content 
with  Spanish  newspapers,  she  had  no  trouble  reading  them,  as  she  said, 
all  the  important  words  were  in  french. 


138  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Jeanne  told  -endless  stories  of  french  village  life  and  Gertrude  Stein 
could  listen  a  long  time  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  she  could  not  listen 
any  more. 

Life  in  Mallorca  was  pleasant  until  the  attack  on  Verdun  began.  Then 
we  all  began  to  be  very  miserable.  We  tried  to  console  each  other  but  it 
was  difficult.  One  of  the  frenchmen,  an  engraver  who  had  palsy  and  in 
spite  of  the  palsy  tried  every  few  months  to  get  the  french  consul  to 
accept  him  for  the  army,  used  to  say  we  must  not  worry  if  Verdun  is 
taken,  it  is  not  an  entry  into  France,  it  is  only  a  moral  victory  for  the 
germans.  But  we  were  all  desperately  unhappy.  I  had  been  so  confident 
and  now  1  had  an  awful  feeling  that  the  war  had  gotten  out  of  my  hands. 

In  the  port  of  Palma  was  a  german  ship  called  the  Fangturm  which 
sold  pins  and  needles  to  all  the  Mediterranean  ports  before  the  war  and 
further,  presumably,  because  it  was  a  very  big  steamer.  It  had  been 
caught  in  Palma  when  the  war  broke  out  and  had  never  been  able  to 
leave.  Most  of  the  officers  and  sailors  had  gotten  away  to  Barcelona  but 
the  big  ship  remained  in  the  harbour.  It  looked  very  rusty  and  neglected 
and  it  was  just  under  our  windows.  All  of  a  sudden  as  the  attack  on  Ver- 
dun commenced,  they  began  painting  the  Fangturm.  Imagine  our  feel- 
ings. We  were  all  pretty  unhappy  and  this  was  despair.  We  told  the 
french  consul  and  he  told  us  and  it  was  awful. 

Day  by  day  the  news  was  worse  and  one  whole  side  of  the  Fangturm 
was  painted  and  then  they  stopped  painting.  They  knew  it  before  we 
did.  Verdun  was  not  going  to  be  taken.  Verdun  was  safe.  The  germans 
had  given  up  hoping  to  take  it. 

When  it  was  all  over  we  none  of  us  wanted  to  stay  in  Mallorca  any 
longer,  we  all  wanted  to  go  home.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Cook  and 
Gertrude  Stein  spent  all  their  time  talking  about  automobiles.  They 
neither  of  them  had  ever  driven  but  they  were  getting  very  interested. 
Cook  also  began  to  wonder  how  he  was  going  to  earn  his  living  when 
he  got  to  Paris.  His  tiny  income  did  for  Mallorca  but  it  would  not  keep 
him  long  in  Paris.  He  thought  of  driving  horses  for  Felix  Potin's  deliv- 
ery wagons,  he  said  after  all  he  liked  horses  better  than  automobiles. 
Anyway  he  went  back  to  Paris  and  when  we  got  there,  we  went  a 
longer  way,  by  way  of  Madrid,  he  was  driving  a  Paris  taxi.  Later  on  he 
became  a  trier-out  of  cars  for  the  Renault  works  and  I  can  remember 
how  exciting  it  was  when  he  described  how  the  wind  blew  out  his 


THE  WAR  139 

cheeks  when  he  made  eighty  kilometres  an  hour.  Then  later  he  joined 
the  american  army. 

We  went  home  by  way  of  Madrid.  There  we  had  a  curious  experience. 
We  went  to  the  american  consul  to  have  our  passports  visaed.  He  was  a 
great  big  flabby  man  and  he  had  a  filipino  as  an  assistant.  He  looked  at 
our  passports,  he  measured  them,  weighed  them,  looked  at  them  upside 
down  and  finally  said  that  he  supposed  they  were  alright  but  how  could 
he  tell.  He  then  asked  the  filipino  what  he  thought.  The  filipino  seemed 
inclined  to  agree  that  the  consul  could  not  tell.  I  tell  you  what  you  do, 
he  said  ingratiatingly,  you  go  to  the  french  consul  since  you  are  going 
to  France  and  you  live  in  Paris  and  if  the  french  consul  says  they  are 
alright,  why  the  consul  will  sign.  The  consul  sagely  nodded. 

We  were  furious.  It  was  an  awkward  position  that  a  french  consul, 
not  an  american  one  should  decide  whether  american  passports  were 
alright.  However  there  was  nothing  else  to  do  so  we  went  to  the  french 
consul. 

When  our  turn  came  the  man  in  charge  took  our  passports  and  looked 
them  over  and  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  when  were  you  last  in  Spain.  She 
stopped  to  think,  she  never  can  remember  anything  when  anybody  asks 
her  suddenly,  and  she  said  she  did  not  remember  but  she  thought  it  was 
such  and  such  a  date.  He  said  no,  and  mentioned  another  year.  She  said 
very  likely  he  was  right.  Then  he  went  on  to  give  all  the  dates  of  her 
various  visits  to  Spain  and  finally  he  added  a  visit  when  she  was  still  at 
college  when  she  was  in  Spain  with  her  brother  just  after  the  Spanish 
war.  It  was  all  in  a  way  rather  frightening  to  me  standing  by  but  Ger- 
trude Stein  and  the  assistant  consul  seemed  to  be  thoroughly  interested 
in  fixing  dates.  Finally  he  said,  you  see  I  was  for  many  years  in  the  letter 
of  credit  department  of  the  Credit  Lyonnais  in  Madrid  and  I  have  a 
very  good  memory  and  I  remember,  of  course  I  remember  you  very 
well.  We  were  all  very  pleased.  He  signed  the  passports  and  told  us  to 
go  back  and  tell  our  consul  to  do  so  also. 

At  the  time  we  were  furious  with  our  consul  but  now  I  wonder  if  it 
was  not  an  arrangement  between  the  two  offices  that  the  american  con- 
sul should  not  sign  any  passport  to  enter  France  until  the  french  consul 
had  decided  whether  its  owner  was  or  was  not  desirable. 

We  came  back  to  an  entirely  different  Paris.  It  was  no  longer  gloomy. 
It  was  no  longer  empty.  This  time  we  did  not  settle  down,  we  decided 


140  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

to  get  into  the  war.  One  day  we  were  walking  down  the  rue  des  Pyra- 
mides  and  there  was  a  ford  car  being  backed  up  the  street  by  an  amer- 
ican  girl  and  on  the  car  it  said,  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded. 
There,  said  I,  that  is  what  we  are  going  to  do.  At  least,  said  I  to  Ger- 
trude Stein,  you  will  drive  the  car  and  I  will  do  the  rest.  We  went  over 
and  talked  to  the  american  girl  and  then  interviewed  Mrs.  Lathrop,  the 
head  of  the  organisation.  She  was  enthusiastic,  she  was  always  enthu- 
siastic and  she  said,  get  a  car.  But  where,  we  asked.  From  America,  she 
said.  But  how,  we  said.  Ask  somebody,  she  said,  and  Gertrude  Stein  did, 
she  asked  her  cousin  and  in  a  few  months  the  ford  car  came.  In  the 
meanwhile  Cook  had  taught  her  to  drive  his  taxi. 

As  I  said  it  was  a  changed  Paris.  Everything  was  changed,  and  every- 
body was  cheerful. 

During  our  absence  Eve  had  died  and  Picasso  was  now  living  in  a 
little  home  in  Montrouge.  We  went  out  to  see  him.  He  had  a  marvel- 
lous rose  pink  silk  counterpane  on  his  bed.  Where  did  that  come  from 
Pablo,  asked  Gertrude  Stein.  Ah  £a,  said  Picasso  with  much  satisfaction, 
that  is  a  lady.  It  was  a  well  known  chilean  society  woman  who  had  given 
it  to  him.  It  was  a  marvel.  He  was  very  cheerful.  He  was  constantly 
coming  to  the  house,  bringing  Paquerette  a  girl  who  was  very  nice  or 
Irene  a  very  lovely  woman  who  came  from  the  mountains  and  wanted 
to  be  free.  He  brought  Erik  Satie  and  the  Princesse  de  Polignac  and 
Blaise  Cendrars. 

It  was  a  great  pleasure  to  know  Erik  Satie.  He  was  from  Normandy 
and  very  fond  of  it.  Marie  Laurencin  comes  from  Normandy,  so  also 
does  Braque.  Once  when  after  the  war  Satie  and  Marie  Laurencin  were 
at  the  house  for  lunch  they  were  delightfully  enthusiastic  about,  each 
other  as  being  normans.  Erik  Satie  liked  food  and  wine  and  knew  a 
lot  about  both.  We  had  at  that  time  some  very  good  eau  de  vie  that  the 
husband  of  Mildred  Aldrich's  servant  had  given  us  and  Erik  Satie,  drink- 
ing his  glass  slowly  and  with  appreciation,  told  stories  of  the  country  in 
his  youth. 

Only  once  in  the  half  dozen  times  that  Erik  Satie  was  at  the  house 
did  he  talk  about  music.  He  said  that  it  had  always  been  his  opinion 
and  he  was  glad  that  it  was  being  recognised  that  modern  french  music 
owned  nothing  to  modern  Germany.  That  after  Debussy  had  led  the 
way  french  musicians  had  either  followed  him  or  found  their  own 
french  way. 


THE  WAR  141 

He  told  charming  stories,  usually  of  Normandy,  he  had  a  playful  wit 
which  was  sometimes  very  biting.  He  was  a  charming  dinner-guest.  It 
was  many  years  later  that  Virgil  Thomson,  when  we  first  knew  him  in 
his  tiny  room  near  the  Gare  Saint-Lazare,  played  for  us  the  whole  of 
Socrate.  It  was  then  that  Gertrude  Stein  really  became  a  Satie  enthu- 
siast. 

Ellen  La  Motte  and  Emily  Chadbourne,  who  had  not  gone  to  Serbia, 
were  still  in  Paris.  Ellen  La  Motte,  who  was  an  ex  Johns  Hopkins  nurse, 
wanted  to  nurse  near  the  front.  She  was  still  gun  shy  but  she  did  want* 
to  nurse  at  the  front,  and  they  met  Mary  Borden-Turner  who  was  run- 
ning a  hospital  at  the  front  and  Ellen  La  Motte  did  for  a  few  months 
nurse  at  the  front.  After  that  she  and  Emily  Chadbourne  went  to  China 
and  after  that  became  leaders  of  the  anti-opium  campaign. 

Mary  Borden-Turner  had  been  and  was  going  to  be  a  writer.  She  was 
very  enthusiastic  about  the  work  of  Gertrude  Stein  and  travelled  with 
what  she  had  of  it  and  volumes  of  Flaubert  to  and  from  the  front.  She 
had  taken  a  house  near  the  Bois  and  it  was  heated  and  during  that  win- 
ter when  the  rest  of  us  had  no  coal  it  was  very  pleasant  going  to  dinner 
there  and  being  warm.  We  liked  Turner.  He  was  a  captain  in  the  British 
army  and  was  doing  contre-espionage  work  very  successfully.  Although 
married  to  Mary  Borden  he  did  not  believe  in  millionaires.  He  insisted 
upon  giving  his  own  Christmas  party  to  the  women  and  children  in  the 
village  in  which  he  was  billeted  and  he  always  said  that  after  the  war 
he  would  be  collector  of  customs  for  the  British  in  Diisseldorf  or  go  out 
to  Canada  and  live  simply.  After  all,  he  used  to  say  to  his  wife,  you 
are  not  a  millionaire,  not  a  real  one.  He  had  british  standards  of  mil- 
lionairedom.  Mary  Borden  was  very  Chicago.  Gertrude  Stein  always 
says  that  chicagoans  spent  so  much  energy  losing  Chicago  that  often  it  is 
difficult  to  know  what  they  are.  They  have  to  lose  the  Chicago  voice 
and  to  do  so  they  do  many  things.  Somq  lower  their  voices,  some 
raise  them,  some  get  an  english  accent,  some  even  get  a  german  ac- 
cent, some  drawl,  some  speak  in  a  very  high  tense  voice,  and  some  go 
Chinese  or  Spanish  and  do  not  move  the  lips.  Mary  Borden  was  very 
Chicago  and  Gertrude  Stein  was  immensely  interested  in  her  and  in 
Chicago. 

All  this  time  we  were  waiting  for  our  ford  truck  which  was  on  its 
way  and  then  we  waited  for  its  body  to  be  built.  We  waited  a  great  deal. 
It  was  then  that  Gertrude  Stein  wrote  a  great  many  little  war  poems, 


142  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

some  of  them  have  since  beejri  published  in  the  volume  Useful  Knowl- 
edge which  has  in  it  only  things  about  America. 

Stirred  by  the  publication  of  Tender  Buttons  many  newspapers  had 
taken  up  the  amusement  of  imitating  Gertrude  Stein's  work  and  mak- 
ing fun  of  it.  Life  began  a  series  that  were  called  after  Gertrude  Stein. 

Gertrude  Stein  suddenly  one  day  wrote  a  letter  to  Masson  who  was 
then  editor  of  Life  and  said  to  him  that  the  real  Gertrude  Stein  was  as 
Henry  McBride  had  pointed  out  funnier  in  every  way  than  the  imita- 
tions, not  to  say  much  more  interesting,  and  why  did  they  not  print  the 
original.  To  her  astonishment  she  received  a  very  nice  letter  from  Mr. 
Masson  saying  that  he  would  be  glad  to  do  so.  And  they  did.  They 
printed  two  things  that  she  sent  them,  one  about, Wilson  and  one  longer 
thing  about  war  work  in  France.  Mr.  Masson  had  more  courage  than 
most. 

This  winter  Paris  was  bitterly  cold  and  there  was  no  coal.  We  finally 
had  none  at  all.  We  closed  up  the  big  room  and  stayed  in  a  little  room 
but  at  last  we  had  no  more  coal.  The  government  was  giving  coal  away 
to  the  needy  but  we  did  not  feel  justified  in  sending  our  servant  to  stand 
in  line  to  get  it.  One  afternoon  it  was  bitterly  cold,  we  went  out  and  on 
a  street  corner  was  a  policeman  and  standing  with  him  was  a  sergeant 
of  police.  Gertrude  Stein  went  up  to  them.  Look  here,  she  said  to  them, 
what  are  we  to  do.  I  live  in  a  pavilion  on  the  rue  de  Fleurus  and  have 
lived  there  many  years.  Oh  yes,  said  they  nodding  their  heads,  certainly 
madame  we  know  you  very  well.  Well,  she  said,  I  have  no  coal  not 
even  enough  to  heat  one  small  room.  I  do  not  want  to  send  my  servant 
to  get  it  for  nothing,  that  does  not  seem  right.  Now,  she  said,  it  is  up 
to  you  to  tell  me  what  to  do.  The  policeman  looked  at  his  sergeant  and 
the  sergeant  nodded.  Alright,  they  said. 

We  went  home.  That  evening  the  policeman  in  civilian  clothes  turned 
up  with  two  sacks  of  coal.  We  accepted  thankfully  and  asked  no  ques- 
tions. The  policeman,  a  stalwart  breton  became  our  all  in  all.  He  did 
everything  for  us,  he  cleaned  our  home,  he  cleaned  our  chimneys,  he 
got  us  in  and  he  got  us  out  and  on  dark  nights  when  Zeppelins  came 
it  was  comfortable  to  know  that  he  was  somewhere  outside. 

There  were  Zeppelin  alarms  from  time  to  time,  but  like  everything 
else  we  had  gotten  used  to  them.  When  they  came  at  dinner  time  we 
went  on  eating  and  when  they  came  at  night  Gertrude  Stein  did  not 
wake  me,  she  said  I  might  as  well  stay  where  I  was  if  I  was  asleep  because 


THE  WAR  143 

when  asleep  it  took  more  than  even  the  siren  that  they  used  then  to  give 
the  signal,  to  wake  me. 

Our  little  ford  was  almost  ready.  She  was  later  to  be  called  Auntie 
after  Gertrude  Stein's  aunt  Pauline  who  always  behaved  admirably  in 
emergencies  and  behaved  fairly  well  most  times  if  she  was  properly 
flattered. 

One  day  Picasso  came  in  and  with  him  and  leaning  on  his  shoulder 
was  a  slim  elegant  youth.  It  is  Jean,  announced  Pablo,  Jean  Cocteau  and 
we  are  leaving  for  Italy. 

Picasso  had  been  excited  at  the  prospect  of  doing  the  scenery  for  a 
russian  ballet,  the  music  to  be  by  Satie,  the  drama  by  Jean  Cocteau. 
Everybody  was  at  the  war,  life  in  Montparnasse  was  not  very  gay,  Mont- 
rouge  with  even  a  faithful  servant  was  not  very  lively,  he  loo  needed  a 
change.  He  was  very  lively  at  the  prospect  of  going  to  Rome.  We  all 
said  goodbye  and  we  all  went  our  various  ways. 

The  little  ford  car  was  ready.  Gertrude  Stein  had  learned  to  drive  a 
french  car  and  they  all  said  it  was  the  same.  I  have  never  driven  any  car, 
but  it  would  appear  that  it  is  not  the  same.  We  went  outside  of  Paris  to 
get  it  when  it  was  ready  and  Gertrude  Stein  drove  it  in.  Of  course  the 
first  thing  she  did  was  to  stop  dead  on  the  track  between  two  street  cars. 
Everybody  got  out  and  pushed  us  off  the  track.  The  next  day  when  we 
started  off  to  see  what  would  happen  we  managed  to  get  as  far  as  the 
Champs  Elysccs  and  once  more  stopped  dead.  A  crowd  shoved  us  to  the 
side  walk  and  then  tried  to  find  out  what  was  the  matter.  Gertrude  Stein 
cranked,  the  whole  crowd  cranked,  nothing  happened.  Finally  an  old 
chauffeur  said,  no  gasoline.  We  said  proudly,  oh  yes  at  least  a  gallon,  but 
he  insisted  on  looking  and  of  course  there  was  none.  Then  the  crowd 
stopped  a  whole  procession  of  military  trucks  that  were  going  up  the 
Champs  Elysees.  They  all  stopped  and  a  couple  of  them  brought  over 
an  immense  tank  of  gasoline  and  tried  to  pour  it  into  the  little  ford. 
Naturally  the  process  was  not  successful.  Finally  getting  into  a  taxi  I 
went  to  a  store  in  our  quarter  where  they  sold  brooms  and  gasoline  and 
where  they  knew  me  and  I  came  back  with  a  tin  of  gasoline  and  we 
finally  arrived  at  the  Alcazar  d'Ete,  the  then  headquarters  of  the  Amer- 
ican Fund  for  French  Wounded. 

Mrs.  Lathrop  was  waiting  for  one  of  the  cars  to  take  her  to  Mont- 
martre.  I  immediately  offered  the  service  of  our  car  and  went  out  and 
told  Gertrude  Stein.  She  quoted  Edwin  Dodge  to  me.  Once  Mabel 


144  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Dodge's  little  boy  said  he  would  like  to  fly  from  the  terrace  to  the  lower 
garden.  Do,  said  Mabel.  It  is  easy,  said  Edwin  Dodge,  to  be  a  spartan 
mother. 

However  Mrs.  Lathrop  came  and  the  car  went  off.  I  must  confess  to 
being  terribly  nervous  until  they  came  back  but  come  back  they  did. 

We  had  a  consultation  with  Mrs.  Lathrop  and  she  sent  us  off  to  Per- 
pignan,  a  region  with  a  good  many  hospitals  that  no  american  organisa- 
tion had  ever  visited.  We  started.  We  had  never  been  further  from  Paris 
than  Fontainbleau  in  the  car  and  it  was  terribly  exciting. 

We  had  a  few  adventures,  we  were  caught  in  the  snow  and  I  was  sure 
that  we  were  on  the  wrong  road  and  wanted  to  turn  back.  Wrong  or 
right,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  we  are  going  on.  She  could  not  back  the  car 
very  successfully  and  indeed  I  may  say  even  to  this  day  when  she  can 
drive  any  kind  of  a  car  anywhere  she  still  does  not  back  a  car  very  well. 
She  goes  forward  admirably,  she  does  not  go  backwards  successfully. 
The  only  violent  discussions  that  we  have  had  in  connection  with  her 
driving  a  car  have  been  on  the  subject  of  backing. 

On  this  trip  South  we  picked  up  our  first  military  god-son.  We  began 
the  habit  then  which  we  kept  up  all  though  the  war  of  giving  any  sol- 
dier on  the  road  a  lift.  We  drove  by  day  and  we  drove  by  night  and  in 
very  lonely  parts  of  France  and  we  always  stopped  and  gave  a  lift  to  any 
soldier,  and  never  had  we  any  but  the  most  pleasant  experiences  with 
these  soldiers.  And  some  of  them  were  as  we  sometimes  found  out  pretty 
hard  characters.  Gertrude  Stein  once  said  to  a  soldier  who  was  doing 
something  for  her,  they  were  always  doing  something  for  her,  whenever 
there  was  a  soldier  or  a  chauffeur  or  any  kind  of  a  man  anywhere,  she 
never  did  anything  for  herself,  neither  changing  a  tyre,  cranking  the  car 
or  repairing  it.  Gertrude  Stein  said  to  this  soldier,  but  you  are  tellement 
gentil,  very  nice  and  kind.  Madame,  said  he  quite  simply,  all  soldiers 
are  nice  and  kind. 

This  faculty  of  Gertrude  Stein  of  having  everybody  do  anything  for 
her  puzzled  the  other  drivers  of  the  organisation.  Mrs.  Lathrop  who  used 
to  drive  her  own  car  said  that  nobody  did  those  things  for  her.  It  was 
not  only  soldiers,  a  chauffeur  would  get  off  the  sea*t  of  a  private  car  in  the 
place  Vendome  and  crank  Gertrude  Stein's  old  ford  for  her.  Gertrude 
Stein  said  that  the  others  looked  so  efficient,  of  course  nobody  would 
think  of  doing  anything  for  them.  Now  as  for  herself  she  was  not  effi- 
cient, she  was  good  humoured,  she  was  democratic,  one  person  was  as 


THE  WAR  145 

good  as  another,  and  she  knew  what  she  wanted  done.  If  you  are  like 
that  she  says,  anybody  will  do  anything  for  you.  The  important  thing,  she 
insists,  is  that  you  must  have  deep  down  as  the  deepest  thing  in  you  a 
sense  of  equality.  Then  anybody  will  do  anything  for  you. 

It  was  not  far  from  Saulieu  that  we  picked  up  our  first  military  god- 
son. He  was  a  butcher  in  a  tiny  village  not  far  from  Saulieu.  Our  taking 
him  up  was  a  good  example  of  the  democracy  of  the  french  army.  There 
were  three  of  them  walking  along  the  road.  We  stopped  and  said  we 
could  take  one  of  them  on  the  step.  They  were  all  three  going  home  on 
leave  and  walking  into  the  country  to  their  homes  from  the  nearest  big 
town.  One  was  a  lieutenant,  one  was  a  sergeant  and  one  a  soldier.  They 
thanked  us  and  then  the  lieutenant  said  to  each  one  of  them,  how  far 
have  you  to  go.  They  each  one  named  the  distance  and  then  they  said, 
and  you  my  lieutenant,  how  far  have  you  to  go.  He  told  them.  Then 
they  all  agreed  that  it  was  the  soldier  who  had  much  the  longest  way  to 
go  and  so  it  was  his  right  to  have  the  lift.  He  touched  his  cap  to  his 
sergeant  and  officer  and  got  in. 

As  I  say  he  was  our  first  military  god-son.  We  had  a  great  many  after- 
wards and  it  was  quite  an  undertaking  to  keep  them  all  going.  The  duty 
of  a  military  god-mother  was  to  write  a  letter  as  often  as  she  received 
one  and  to  send  a  package  of  comforts  or  dainties  about  once  in  ten 
days.  They  liked  the  packages  but  they  really  liked  letters  even  more. 
And  they  answered  so  promptly.  It  seemed  to  me,  no  sooner  was  my 
letter  written  than  there  was  an  answer.  And  then  one  had  to  remember 
all  their  family  histories  and  once  I  did  a  dreadful  thing,  I  mixed  my 
letters  and  so  I  asked  a  soldier  whose  wife  I  knew  all  about  and  whose 
mother  was  dead  to  remember  me  to  his  mother,  and  the  one  who  had 
the  mother  to  remember  me  to  his  wife.  Their  return  letters  were  quite 
mournful.  They  each  explained  that  I  had  made  a  mistake  and  I  could 
see  that  they  had  been  deeply  wounded  by  my  error. 

The  most  delightful  god-son  we  ever  had  was  one  we  took  on  in 
Nimes.  One  day  when  we  were  in  the  town  I  dropped  my  purse.  I  did 
not  notice  the  loss  until  we  returned  to  the  hotel  and  then  I  was  rather 
bothered  as  there  had  been  a  good  deal  of  money  in  it.  While  we  were 
eating  our  dinner  the  waiter  said  some  one  wanted  to  see  us.  We  went 
out  and  there  was  a  man  holding  the  purse  in  his  hand.  He  said  he  had 
picked  it  up  in  the  street  and  as  soon  as  his  work  was  over  had  come  to 
the  hotel  to  give  it  to  us.  There  was  a  card  of  mine  in  the  purse  and  he 


146  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

took  it  for  granted  that  a  stranger  would  be  at  the  hotel,  beside  by  that 
time  we  were  very  well  known  in  Nimes.  I  naturally  offered  him  a  con- 
siderable reward  from  the  contents  of  the  purse  but  he  said  no.  He  said 
however  that  he  had  a  favour  to  ask.  They  were  refugees  from  the  Marne 
and  his  son  Abel  now  seventeen  years  old  had  just  volunteered  and  was 
at  present  in  the  garrison  at  Nimes,  would  I  be  his  god-mother.  I  said 
I  would,  and  I  asked  him  to  tell  his  son  to  come  to  see  me  his  first  free 
evening.  The  next  evening  the  youngest,  the  sweetest,  the  smallest  sol- 
dier imaginable  came  in.  It  was  Abel. 

We  became  very  attached  to  Abel.  I  always  remember  his  first  letter 
from  the  front.  He  began  by  saying  that  he  was  really  not  very  much 
surprised  by  anything  at  the  front,  it  was  exactly  as  it  had  been  described 
to  him  and  as  he  had  imagined  it,  except  that  there  being  no  tables  one 
was  compelled  to  write  upon  one's  knees. 

The  next  time  we  saw  Abel  he  was  wearing  the  red  fourragere,  his 
regiment  as  a  whole  had  been  decorated  with  the  legion  of  honour  and 
we  were  very  proud  of  our  filleul.  Still  later  when  we  went  into  Alsace 
with  the  french  army,  after  the  armistice,  we  had  Abel  come  and  stay 
with  us  a  few  days  and  a  proud  boy  he  was  when  he  climbed  to  the  top 
of  the  Strasbourg  cathedral. 

When  we  finally  returned  to  Paris,  Abel  came  and  stayed  with  us  a 
week.  We  took  him  to  see  everything  and  he  said  solemnly  at  the  end 
of  his  first  day,  I  think  all  that  was  worth  fighting  for.  Paris  in  the  eve- 
ning however  frightened  him  and  we  always  had  to  get  somebody  to  go 
out  with  him.  The  front  had  not  been  scareful  but  Paris  at  night  was. 

Some  time  later  he  wrote  and  said  that  the  family  were  moving  into  a 
different  department  and  he  gave  me  his  new  address.  By  some  error 
the  address  did  not  reach  him  and  we  lost  him. 

We  did  finally  arrive  at  Perpignan  and  began  visiting  hospitals  and 
giving  away  our  stores  and  sending  word  to  headquarters  if  we  thought 
they  needed  more  than  we  had.  At  first  it  was  a  little  difficult  but  soon 
we  were  doing  all  we  were  to  do  very  well.  We  were  also  given  quan- 
tities of  comfort-bags  and  distributing  these  was  a  perpetual  delight,  it 
was  like  a  continuous  Christmas.  We  always  had  permission  from  the 
head  of  the  hospital  to  distribute  these  to  the  soldiers  themselves  which 
was  in  itself  a  great  pleasure  but  also  it  enabled  us  to  get  the  soldiers  to 
immediately  write  postal  cards  of  thanks  and  these  we  used  to  send  off 


THE  WAR  147 

in  batches  to  Mrs.  Lathrop  who  sent  them  to  America  to  the  people  who 
had  sent  the  comfort-bags.  And  so  everybody  was  pleased. 

Then  there  was  the  question  of  gasoline.  The  American  Fund  for 
French  Wounded  had  an  order  from  the  f rench  government  giving  them 
the  privilege  of  buying  gasoline.  But  there  was  no  gasoline  to  buy.  The 
french  army  had  plenty  of  it  and  were  ready  to  give  it  to  us  but  they 
could  not  sell  it  and  we  were  privileged  to  buy  it  but  not  to  receive  it 
for  nothing.  It  was  necessary  to  interview  the  officer  in  command  of  the 
commissary  department. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  perfectly  ready  to  drive  the  car  anywhere,  to  crank 
the  car  as  often  as  there  was  nobody  else  to  do  it,  to  repair  the  car,  I 
must  say  she  was  very  good  at  it,  even  if  she  was  not  ready  to  take  it  all 
down  and  put  it  back  again  for  practice  as  I  wanted  her  to  do  in  the 
beginning,  she  was  even  resigned  to  getting  up  in  the  morning,  but  she 
flatly  refused  to  go  inside  of  any  office  and  interview  any  official.  I  was 
officially  the  delegate  and  she  was  officially  the  driver  but  I  'had  to  go 
and  interview  the  major. 

He  was  a  charming  major.  The  affair  was  very  long  drawn  out,  he 
sent  me  here  and  he  sent  me  there  but  finally  the  matter  was  straightened 
out.  All  this  time  of  course  he  called  me  Mademoiselle  Stein  because 
Gertrude  Stein's  name  was  on  all  the  papers  that  I  presented  to  him, 
she  being  the  driver.  And  so  now,  he  said,  Mademoiselle  Stein,  my  wife 
is  very  anxious  to  make  your  acquaintance  and  she  has  asked  me  to  ask 
you  to  dine  with  us.  I  was  very  confused.  I  hesitated.  But  I  am  not 
Mademoiselle  Stein,  I  said.  He  almost  jumped  out  of  his  chair.  What, 
he  shouted,  not  Mademoiselle  Stein.  Then  who  are  you.  It  must  be  re- 
membered this  was  war  time  and  Perpignan  almost  at  the  Spanish  fron- 
tire.  Well,  said  I,  you  see  Mademoiselle  Stein.  Where  is  Mademoiselle 
Stein,  he  said.  She  is  downstairs,  I  said  feebly,  in  the  automobile.  Well 
what  does  all  this  mean,  he  said.  Well,  I  said,  you  see  Mademoiselle 
Stein  is  the  driver  and  I  am  the  delegate  and  Mademoiselle  Stein  has  no 
patience  'she  will  not  go  into  offices  and  wait  and  interview  people  and 
explain,  so  I  do  it  for  her  while  she  sits  in  the  automobile.  But  what,  said 
he  sternly,  would  you  have  done  if  I  had  asked  you  to  sign  something. 
I  would  have  told  you,  I  said,  as  I  am  telling  you  now.  Indeed,  he  said, 
let  us  go  downstairs  and  see  this  Mademoiselle  Stein. 

We  went  downstairs  and  Gertrude  Stein  was  sitting  in  the  driver's  seat 


148  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

of  the  little  ford  and  he  came  up  to  her.  They  immediately  became 
friends  and  he  renewed  his  invitation  and  we  went  to  dinner.  We  had  a 
good  time.  Madame  Dubois  came  from  Bordeaux,  the  land  of  food  and 
wine.  And  what  food  above  all  the  soup.  It  still  remains  to  me  the  stand- 
ard of  comparison  with  all  the  other  soups  in  the  world.  Sometimes  some 
approach  it,  a  very  few  have  equalled  it  but  none  have  surpassed  it. 

Perpignan  is  not  far  from  Rivesaltes  and  Rivesaltes  is  the  birthplace 
of  JofTre.  It  had  a  little  hospital  and  we  got  it  extra  supplies  in  honour 
of  Papa  JorTre.  We  had  also  the  little  ford  car  showing  the  red  cross  and 
the  A.F.F.W.  sign  and  ourselves  in  it  photographed  in  front  of  the  house 
in  the  little  street  where  JofTre  was  born  and  had  this  photograph  printed 
and  sent  to  Mrs.  Lathrop.  The  postal  cards  were-  sent  to  America  and 
sold  for  the  benefit  of  the  fund.  In  the  meantime  the  U.S.  had  come  into 
the  war  and  we  had  some  one  send  us  a  lot  of  ribbon  with  the  stars  and 
stripes  printed  on  it  and  we  cut  this  up  and  gave  it  to  all  the  soldiers 
and  they  and  we  were  pleased. 

Which  reminds  me  of  a  french  peasant.  Later  in  Nimes  we  had  an 
american  ambulance  boy  in  the  car  with  us  and  we  were  out  in  the 
country.  The  boy  had  gone  off  to  visit  a  waterfall  and  I  had  gone  off  to 
see  a  hospital  and  Gertrude  Stein  stayed  with  the  car.  She  told  me  when 
I  came  back  that  an  old  peasant  had  come  up  to  her  and  asked  her  what 
uniform  the  young  man  was  wearing.  That,  she  had  said  proudly,  is  the 
uniform  of  the  american  army,  your  new  ally.  Oh,  said  the  old  peasant. 
And  then  contemplatively,  I  ask  myself  what  will  we  accomplish  to- 
gether, je  me  demande  je  me  demande  qu'est-ce  que  nous  ferons  en- 
semble. 

Our  work  in  Perpignan  being  over  we  started  back  to  Paris.  On  the 
way  everything  happened  to  the  car.  Perhaps  it  had  been  too  hot  even 
for  a  ford  car  in  Perpignan.  Perpignan  is  below  sea  level  near  the  Medi- 
terranean and  it  is  hot.  Gertrude  Stein  who  had  always  wanted  it  hot 
and  hotter  has  never  been  really  enthusiastic  about  heat  after  this  experi- 
ence. She  said  she  had  been  just  like  a  pancake,  the  heat  above  and  the 
heat  below  and  cranking  a  car  beside.  I  do  not  know  how  often  she  used 
to  swear  and  say,  I  am  going  to  scrap  it,  that  is  all  there  is  about  it  I  am 
going  to  scrap  it.  I  encouraged  and  remonstrated  until  the  car  started 
again. 

It  was  in  connection  with  this  that  Mrs.  Lathrop  played  a  joke  on 


THE  WAR  149 

Gertrude  Stein.  After  the  war  was  over  we  were  both  decorated  by  the 
french  government,  we  received  the  Reconnaissance  Franchise.  They 
always  in  giving  you  a  decoration  give  you  a  citation  telling  why  you 
have  been  given  it.  The  account  of  our  valour  was  exactly  the  same,  ex- 
cept in  my  case  they  said  that  my  devotion  was  sans  relache,  with  no 
abatement,  and  in  her  case  they  did  not  put  in  the  words  san  relache. 

On  the  way  back  to  Paris  we,  as  I  say  had  everything  happen  to  the 
car  but  Gertrude  Stein  with  the  aid  of  an  old  tramp  on  the  road  who 
pushed  and  shoved  at  the  critical  moments  managed  to  get  it  to  Nevers 
where  we  met  the  first  piece  of  the  american  army.  They  were  the 
quartermasters  department  and  the  marines,  the  first  contingent  to  ar- 
rive in  France.  There  we  first  heard  what  Gertrude  Stein  calls  the  sad 
song  "of  the  marines,  which  tells  how  everybody  else  in  the  american 
army  has  at  sometime  mutinied,  but  the  marines  never. 

Immediately  on  entering  Nevers,  we  saw  Tarn  McGrew,  a  californian 
and  parisian  whom  we  had  known  very  slightly  but  he  was  in  uniform 
and  we  called  for  help.  He  came.  We  told  him  our  troubles.  He  said, 
alright  get  the  car  into  the  garage  of  the  hotel  and  to-morrow  some  of 
the  soldiers  will  put  it  to  rights.  We  did  so. 

That  evening  we  spent  at  Mr.  McGrew's  request  at  the  Y.  M.  C.  A. 
and  saw  for  the  first  time  in  many  years  americans  just  americans,  the 
kind  that  would  not  naturally  ever  have  come  to  Europe.  It  was  quite  a 
thrilling  experience.  Gertrude  Stein  of  course  talked  to  them  all,  wanted 
to  know  what  state  and  what  city  they  came  from,  what  they  did,  how 
old  they  were  and  how  they  liked  it.  She  talked  to  the  french  girls  who 
were  with  the  american  boys  and  the  french  girls  told  her  what  they 
thought  of  the  american  boys  and  the  american  boys  told  her  all  they 
thought  about  the  french  girls. 

The  next  day  she  spent  with  California  and  Iowa  in  the  garage,  as  she 
called  the  two  soldiers  who  were  detailed  to  fix  up  her  car.  She  was 
pleased  with  them  when  every  time  there  was  a  terrific  noise  anywhere, 
they  said  solemnly  to  eaoh  other,  that  french  chauffeur  is  just  changing 
gears.  Gertrude  Stein,  Iowa  and  California  enjoyed  themselves  so  thor- 
oughly that  I  am  sorry  to  say  the  car  did  not  last  out  very  well  after  we 
left  Nevers,  but  at  any  rate  we  did  get  to  Paris. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Gertrude  Stein  conceived  the  idea  of  writing  a 
history  of  the  United  States  consisting  of  chapters  wherein  Iowa  differs 


150  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

from  Kansas,  and  wherein  Kansas  differs  from  Nebraska  etcetera.  She 
did  do  a  little  of  it  which  also  was  printed  in  the  book,  Useful  Knowl- 
edge. 

We  did  not  stay  in  Paris  very  long.  As  soon  as  the  car  was  made  over 
we  left  for  Nimes,  we  were  to  do  the  three  departments  the  Card,  the 
Bouches-du-Rhone  and  the  Vaucluse. 

We  arrived  in  Nimes  and  settled  down  to  a  very  comfortable  life  there. 
We  went  to  see  the  chief  military  doctor  in  the  town,  Doctor  Fabre  and 
through  his  great  kindness  and  that  of  his  wife  we  were  soon  very  much 
at  home  in  Nimes,  but  before  we  began  our  work  there,  Doctor  Fabre 
asked  a  favour  of  us.  There  were  no  autombile  ambulances  left  in  Nimes. 
At  the  military  hospital  was  a  pharmacist,  a  captain  in  the  army,  who 
was  very  ill,  certain  to  die,  and  wanted  to  die  in  his  own  home.  His  wife 
was  with  him  and  would  sit  with  him  and  we  were  to  have  no  respon- 
sibility for  him  except  to  drive  him  home.  Of  course  we  said  we  would 
and  we  did. 

It  had  been  a  long  hard  ride  up  into  the  mountains  and  it  was  dark 
long  before  we  were  back.  We  were  still  some  distance  from  Nimes  when 
suddenly  on  the  road  we  saw  a  couple  of  figures.  The  old  ford  car's  lights 
did  not  light  up  much  of  anything  on  the  road,  and  nothing  along  the 
side  of  the  road  and  we  did  not  make  out  very  well  who  it  was.  How- 
ever we  stopped  as  we  always  did  when  anybody  asked  us  to  give  them 
a  lift.  One  man,  he  was  evidently  an  officer  said,  my  automobile  has 
broken  down  and  I  must  get  back  to  Nimes.  Alright  we  said,  both  of 
you  climb  into  the  back,  you  will  find  a  mattress  and  things,  make  your- 
selves comfortable.  We  went  on  to  Nimes.  As  we  came  into  the  city  I 
called  through  the  little  window,  where  do  you  want  to  get  down,  where 
are  you  going,  a  voice  replied.  To  the  Hotel  Luxembourg,  I  said.  That 
will  do  alright,  the  voice  replied.  We  arrived  in  front  of  the  Hotel 
Luxembourg  and  stopped.  Here  there  was  plenty  of  light.  We  heard  a 
scramble  in  the  back  and  then  a  little  man,  very  fierce  with  the  cap  and 
oak  leaves  of  a  full  general  and  the  legion  of  honour  medal  at  his  throat, 
appeared  before  us.  He  said,  I  wish  to  thank  you  but  before  I  do  so  I 
must  ask  you  who  you  are.  We,  I  replied  cheerfully  are  the  delegates 
of  the  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded  and  we  are  for  the  present 
stationed  at  Nimes.  And  I,  he  retorted,  am  the  general  who  commands 
here  and  as  I  see  by  your  car  that  you  have  a  french  military  number 
you  should  have  reported  to  me  immediately.  Should  we,  I  said,  I  did 


THE  WAR  151 

not  know,  I  am  most  awfully  sorry.  It  is  alright,  he  said  aggressively,  if 
you  should  ever  want  or  need  anything  let  me  know. 

We  did  let  him  know  very  shortly  because  of  course  there  was  the 
eternal  gasoline  question  and  he  was  kindness  itself  and  arranged  every- 
thing for  us. 

The  little  general  and  his  wife  came  from  the  north  of  France  and  had 
lost  their  home  and  spoke  of  themselves  as  refugees.  When  later  the  big 
Bertha  began  to  fire  on  Paris  and  one  shell  hit  the  Luxembourg  gardens 
very  near  the  rue  de  Fleurus,  I  must  confess  I  began  to  cry  and  said  I  did 
not  want  to  be  a  miserable  refugee.  We  had  been  helping  a  good  many 
of  them.  Gertrude  Stein  said,  General  Frotier's  family  are  refugees  and 
they  are  not  miserable.  More  miserable  than  I  want  to  be,  I  said  bitterly. 

Soon  the  american  army  came  to  .Nimes.  One  day  Madame  Fabre  met 
us  and  said  that  her  cook  had  seen  some  american  soldiers.  She  must 
have  mistaken  some  english  soldiers  for  them,  we  said.  Not  at  all,  she 
answered,  she  is  very  patriotic.  At  any  rate  the  american  soldiers  came, 
a  regiment  of  them  of  the  S.  O.  S.  the  service  of  supply,  how  well  I  re- 
member how  they  used  to  say  it  with  the  emphasis  on  the  of. 

We  soon  got  to  know  them  all  well  and  some  of  them  very  well.  There 
was  Duncan,  a  southern  boy  with  such  a  very  marked  southern  accent 
that  when  he  was  well  into  a  story  I  was  lost.  Gertrude  Stein  whose  peo- 
ple all  come  from  Baltimore  had  no  difficulty  and  they  used  to  shout  with 
laughter  together,  and  all  I  could  understand  was  that  they  had  killed 
him  as  if  he  was  a  chicken.  The  people  in  Nimes  were  as  much  troubled 
as  I  was.  A  great  many  of  the  ladies  in  Nimes  spoke  english  very  well. 
There  had  always  been  english  governesses  in  Nimes,  and  they,  the 
nimoises  had  always  prided  themselves  on  their  knowledge  of  english 
but  as  they  said  not  only  could  they  not  understand  these  americans  but 
these  americans  could  not  understand  them  when  they  spoke  english.  I 
had  to  admit  that  it  was  more  or  less  the  same  with  me. 

The  soldiers  were  all  Kentucky,  South  Carolina  etcetera  and  they  were 
hard  to  understand. 

Duncan  was  a  dear.  He  was  supply-sergeant  to  the  camp  and  when 
we  began  to  find  american  soldiers  here  and  there  in  french  hospitals  we 
always  took  Duncan  along  to  give  the  american  soldier  pieces  of  his  lost 
uniform  and  white  bread.  Poor  Duncan  was  miserable  because  he  was 
not  at  the  front.  He  had  enlisted  as  far  back  as  the  expedition  to  Mexico 
and  here  he  was  well  in  the  rear  and  no  hope  of  getting  away  because  he 


152  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

was  one  of  the  few  who  understood  the  complicated  system  of  army 
book-keeping  and  his  officers  would  not  recommend  him  for  the  front. 
I  will  go,  he  used  to  say  bitterly,  they  can  bust  me  if  they  like  I  will  go. 
But  as  we  told  him  there  were  plenty  of  A.W.O.L.  absent  without  leave 
the  south  was  full  of  them,  we  were  always  meeting  them  and  they 
would  say,  say  any  military  police  around  here.  Duncan  was  not  made 
for  that  life.  Poor  Duncan.  Two  days  before  the  armistice,  he  came  in  to 
see  us  and  he  was  drunk  and  bitter.  He  was  usually  a  sober  boy  but  to 
go  back  and  face  his  family  never  having  been  to  the  front  was  too  awful. 
He  was  with  us  in  a  little  sitting-room  and  in  the  front  room  were  some 
of  his  officers  and  it  would  not  do  for  them  to  see  him  in  that  state  and 
it  was  time  for  him  to  get  back  to  the  camp.  He -had  fallen  half  asleep 
with  his  head  on  the  table.  Duncan,  said  Gertrude  Stein  sharply,  yes, 
he  said.  She  said  to  him,  listen  Duncan.  Miss  Toklas  is  going  to  stand  up, 
you  stand  up  too  and  fix  your  eyes  right  on  the  back  of  her  head,  do  you 
understand.  Yes,  he  said.  Well  then  she  will  start  to  walk  and  you  follow 
her  and  don't  you  for  a  moment  move  your  eyes  from  the  back  of  her 
head  until  you  are  in  my  car.  Yes,  he  said.  And  he  did  and  Gertrude 
Stein  drove  him  to  the  camp. 

Dear  Duncan.  It  was  he  who  was  all  excited  by  the  news  that  the 
americans  had  taken  forty  villages  at  Saint-MihieL  He  was  to  go  with 
us  that  afternoon  to  Avignon  to  deliver  some  cases.  He  was  sitting  very 
straight  on  the  step  and  all  of  a  sudden  his  eye  was  caught  by  some  houses. 
What  are  they,  he  asked.  Oh  just  a  village,  Gertrude  Stein  said.  In  a 
minute  there  were  some  more  houses.  And  what  are  those  houses,  he 
asked.  Oh  just  a  village.  He  fell  very  silent  and  he  looked  at  the  land- 
scape as  he  had  never  looked  at  it  before.  Suddenly  with  a  deep  sigh, 
forty  villages  ain't  so  much,  he  said. 

We  did  enjoy  the  life  with  these  doughboys.  I  would  like  to  tell  noth- 
ing but  doughboy  stories.  They  all  got  on  amazingly  well  with  the 
french.  They  worked  together  in  the  repair  sheds  of  the  railroad.  The 
only  thing  that  bothered  the  americans  were  the  long  hours.  They 
worked  too  concentratedly  to  keep  it  up  so  long.  Finally  an  arrangement 
was  made  that  they  should  have  their  work  to  do  in  their  hours  and 
the  french  in  theirs.  There  was  a  great  deal  of  friendly  rivalry.  The 
american  boys  did  not  see  the  use  of  putting  so  much  finish  on  work  that 
was  to  be  shot  up  so  soon  again,  the  french  said  they  could  not  complete 
work  without  finish.  But  both  lots  thoroughly  liked  each  other. 


THE  WAR  153 

Gertrude  Stein  always  said  the  war  was  so  much  better  than  just 
going  to  America.  Here  you  were  with  America  in  a  kind  of  way  that 
if  you  only  went  to  America  you  could  not  possibly  be.  Every  now  and 
then  one  of  the  american  soldiers  would  get  into  the  hospital  at  Nimes 
and  as  Doctor  Fabre  knew  that  Gertrude  Stein  had  had  a  medical  educa- 
tion he  always  wanted  her  present  with  the  doughboy  on  these  occa- 
sions. One  of  them  fell  off  the  train.  He  did  not  believe  that  the  little 
french  trains  could  go  fast  but  they  did,  fast  enough  to  kill  him. 

This  was  a  tremendous  occasion.  Gertrude  Stein  in  company  with 
the  wife  of  the  prcfet,  the  governmental  head  of  the  department  and  the 
wife  of  the  general  were  the  chief  mourners.  Duncan  and  two  others 
blew  on  the  bugle  and  everybody  made  speeches.  The  Protestant  pastor 
asked  Gertrude  Stein  about  the  dead  man  and  his  virtues  and  she  asked 
the  doughboys.  It  was  difficult  to  find  any  virtue.  Apparently  he  had 
been  a  fairly  hard  citizen.  But  can't  you  tell  me  something  good  about 
him,  she  said  despairingly.  Finally  Taylor,  one  of  his  friends,  looked  up 
solemnly  and  said,  I  tell  you  he  had  a  heart  as  big  as  a  washtub. 

I  often  wonder,  I  have  often  wondered  if  any  of  all  these  doughboys 
who  knew  Gertrude  Stein  so  well  in  those  days  ever  connected  her  with 
the  Gertrude  Stein  of  the  newspapers. 

We  led  a  very  busy  life.  There  were  all  the  americans,  there  were  a 
great  many  in  the  small  hospitals  round  about  as  well  as  in  the  regiment 
in  Nimes  and  we  had  to  find  them  all  and  be  good  to  them,  then  there 
were  all  the  french  in  the  hospitals,  we  had  them  to  visit  as  this  was 
really  our  business,  and  then  later  came  the  Spanish  grippe  and  Gertrude 
Stein  and  one  of  the  military  doctors  from  Nimes  used  to  go  to  all  the 
villages  miles  around  to  bring  into  Nimes  the  sick  soldiers  and  officers 
who  had  fallen  ill  in  their  homes  while  on  leave. 

It  was  during  these  long  trips  that  she  began  writing  a  great  deal  again. 
The  landscape,  the  strange  life  stimulated  her.  It  was  then  that  she  began 
to  love  the  valley  of  the  Rhone,  the  landscape  that  of  all  landscapes  means 
the  most  to  her.  We  are  still  here  in  Bilignin  in  the  valley  of  the  Rhone. 

She  wrote  at  that  time  the  poem  of  The  Deserter,  printed  almost  im- 
mediately in  Vanity  Fair.  Henry  McBride  had  interested  Crowninshield 
in  her  work. 

One  day  when  we  were  in  Avignon  we  met  Braque.  Braque  had  been 
badly  wounded  in  the  head  and  had  come  to  Sorgues  near  Avignon  to 
recover.  It  was  there  that  he  had  been  staying  when  the  mobilisation 


154  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

orders  came  to  him.  It  was  awfully  pleasant  seeing  the  Braques  again. 
Picasso  had  just  written  to  Gertrude  Stein  announcing  his  marriage  to  a 
jeune  fille,  a  real  young  lady,  and  he  had  sent  Gertrude  Stein  a  wedding 
present  of  a  lovely  little  painting  and  a  photograph  of  a  painting  of  his 
wife. 

That  lovely  little  painting  he  copied  for  me  many  years  later  on 
tapestry  canvas  and  I  embroidered  it  and  that  was  the  beginning  of  my 
tapestrying.  I  did  not  think  it  possible  to  ask  him  to  draw  me  something 
to  work  but  when  I  told  Gertrude  Stein  she  said,  alright,  I'll  manage. 
And  so  one  day  when  he  was  at  the  house  she  said,  Pablo,  Alice  wants  to 
make  a  tapestry  of  that  little  picture  and  I  said  I  would  trace  it  for  her. 
He  looked  at  her  with  kindly  contempt,  if  it  is  done  by  anybody,  he  said, 
it  will  be  done  by  me.  Well,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  producing  a  piece  of 
tapestry  canvas,  go  to  it,  and  he  did.  And  I  have  been  making  tapestry 
of  his  drawings  ever  since  and  they  are  very  successful  and  go  marvel- 
lously with  old  chairs.  I  have  done  two  small  Louis  fifteenth  chairs  in 
this  way.  He  is  kind  enough  now  to  make  me  drawings  on  my  working 
canvas  and  to  colour  them  for  me. 

Braque  also  told  us  that  Apollinaire  too  had  married  a  real  young 
lady.  We  gossiped  a  great  deal  together.  But  after  all  there  was  little 
news  to  tell. 

Time  went  on,  we  were  very  busy  and  then  came  the  armistice.  We 
were  the  first  to  bring  the  news  to  many  small  villages.  The  french  sol- 
diers in  the  hospitals  were  relieved  rather  than  glad.  They  seemed  not  to 
feel  that  it  was  going  to  be  such  a  lasting  peace.  I  remember  one  of  them 
saying  to  Gertrude  Stein  when  she  said  to  him,  well  here  is  peace,  at 
least  for  twenty  years,  he  said. 

The  next  morning  we  had  a  telegram  from  Mrs.  Lathrop.  Come  at 
once  want  you  to  go  with  the  french  armies  to  Alsace.  We  did  not  stop 
on  the  way.  We  made  it  in  a  day.  Very  shortly  after  we  left  for  Alsace. 

We  left  for  Alsace  and  on  the  road  had  our  first  and  only  accident. 
The  roads  were  frightful,  mud,  ruts,  snow,  slush,  and  covered  with  the 
french  armies  going  into  Alsace.  As  we  passed,  two  horses  dragging  an 
army  kitchen  kicked  out  of  line  and  hit  our  ford,  the  mud-guard  came 
off  and  the  tool-chest,  and  worst  of  all  the  triangle  of  the  steering  gear 
was  badly  bent.  The  army  picked  up  our  tools  and  our  mud-guard  but 
there  was  nothing  to  do  about  the  bent  triangle.  We  went  on,  the  car 
wandering  all  over  the  muddy  road,  up  hill  and  down  hill,  and  Ger- 


THE  WAR  155 

trude  Stein  sticking  to  the  wheel.  Finally  after  about  forty  kilometres, 
we  saw  on  the  road  some  american  ambulance  men.  Where  can  we  get 
our  car  fixed.  Just  a  little  farther,  they  said.  We  went  a  little  farther 
and  there  found  an  american  ambulance  outfit.  They  had  no  extra  mud- 
guard but  they  could  give  us  a  new  triangle.  I  told  our  troubles  to  the 
sergeant,  he  grunted  and  said  a  word  in  an  undertone  to  a  mechanic. 
Then  turning  to  us  he  said  gruffly,  run-her-in.  Then  the  mechanic  took 
off  his  tunic  and  threw  it  over  the  radiator.  As  Gertrude  Stein  said  when 
any  american  did  that  the  car  was  his. 

We  had  never  realised  before  what  mud-guards  were  for  but  by  the 
time  we  arrived  in  Nancy  we  knew.  The  french  military  repair  shop 
fitted  us  out  with  a  new  mud-guard  and  tool-chest  and  we  went  on  our 
way. 

Soon  we  came  to  the  battle-fields  and  the  lines  of  trenches  of  both 
sides.  To  any  one  who  did  not  see  it  as  it  was  then  it  is  impossible  to 
imagine  it.  It  was  not  terrifying  it  was  strange.  We  were  used  to  ruined 
houses  and  even  ruined  towns  but  this  was  different.  It  was  a  landscape. 
And  it  belonged  to  no  country. 

I  remember  hearing  a  french  nurse  once  say  and  the  only  thing  she  did 
say  of  the  front  was,  c'est  un  paysage  passionant,  an  absorbing  landscape. 
And  that  was  what  it  was  as  we  saw  it.  It  was  strange.  Camouflage,  huts, 
everything  was  there.  It  was  wet  and  dark  and  there  were  a  few  people, 
one  did  not  know  whether  they  were  chinamen  or  europeans.  Our  fan- 
belt  had  stopped  working.  A  staff  car  stopped  and  fixed  it  with  a  hairpin, 
we  still  wore  hairpins. 

Another  thing  that  interested  us  enormously  was  how  different  the 
camouflage  of  the  french  looked  from  the  camouflage  of  the  germans, 
and  then  once  we  came  across  some  very  very  neat  camouflage  and  it  was 
american.  The  idea  was  the  same  but  as  after  all  it  was  different  nation- 
alities who  did  it  the  difference  was  inevitable.  The  colour  schemes  were 
different,  the  designs  were  different,  the  way  of  placing  them  was  differ- 
ent, it  made  plain  the  whole  theory  of  art  and  its  inevitability. 

Finally  we  came  to  Strasbourg  and  then  went  on  to  Mulhouse.  Here 
we  stayed  until  well  into  May. 

Our  business  in  Alsace  was  not  hospitals  but  refugees.  The  inhabitants 
were  returning  to  their  ruined  homes  all  over  the  devastated  country  and 
it  was  the  aim  of  the  A.F.F.W.  to  give  a  pair  of  blankets,  underclothing 
and  children's  and  babies'  woollen  stockings  and  babies'  booties  to  every 


156  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

family.  There  was  a  legend  that  the  quantity  of  babies'  booties  sent  to  us 
came  from  the  gifts  sent  to  Mrs.  Wilson  who  was  supposed  at  that  time 
to  be  about  to  produce  a  little  Wilson.  There  were  a  great  many  babies' 
booties  but  not  too  many  for  Alsace. 

Our  headquarters  was  the  assembly-room  of  one  of  the  big  school- 
buildings  in  Mulhouse.  The  german  school  teachers  had  disappeared 
and  french  school  teachers  who  happened  to  be  in  the  army  had  been 
put  in  temporarily  to  teach.  The  head  of  our  school  was  in  despair,  not 
about  the  docility  of  his  pupils  nor  their  desire  to  learn  french,  but  on 
account  of  their  clothes.  French  children  are  all  always  neatly  clothed. 
There  is  no  such  thing  as  a  ragged  child,  even  orphans  farmed  out  in 
country  villages  are  neatly  dressed,  just  as  all  french  women  are  neat, 
even  the  poor  and  the  aged.  They  may  not  always  be  clean  but  they  are 
always  neat.  From  this  standpoint  the  parti-coloured  rags  of  even  the 
comparatively  prosperous  alsatian  children  were  deplorable  and  the 
french  schoolmasters  suffered.  We  did  our  best  to  help  him  out  with 
black  children's  aprons  but  these  did  not  go  far,  beside  we  had  to  keep 
them  for  the  refugees. 

We  came  to  know  Alsace  and  the  alsatians  very  well,  all  kinds  of  them. 
They  were  astonished  at  the  simplicity  with  which  the  french  army  and 
french  soldiers  took  care  of  themselves.  They  had  not  been  accustomed 
to  that  in  the  german  army.  On  the  other  hand  the  french  soldiers  were 
rather  mistrustful  of  the  alsatians  who  were  too  anxious  to  be  french 
and  yet  were  not  french.  They  are  not  frank,  the  french  soldiers  said. 
And  it  is  quite  true.  The  french  whatever  else  they  may  be  are  frank. 
They  are  very  polite,  they  are  very  adroit  but  sooner  or  later  they  always 
tell  you  the  truth.  The  alsatians  are  not  adroit,  they  are  not  polite  and 
they  do  not  inevitably  tell  you  the  truth.  Perhaps  with  renewed  contact 
with  the  french  they  will  learn  these  things. 

We  distributed.  We  went  into  all  the  devastated  villages.  We  usually 
asked  the  priest  to  help  us  with  the  distribution.  One  priest  who  gave  us 
a  great  deal  of  good  advice  and  with  whom  we  became  very  friendly  had 
only  one  large  room  left  in  his  house.  Without  any  screens  or  partitions 
he  had  made  himself  three  rooms,  the  first  third  had  his  parlour  furni- 
ture, the  second  third  his  dining  room  furniture  and  the  last  third  his 
bedroom  furniture.  When  we  lunched  with  him  and  we  lunched  well 
and  his  alsatian  wines  were  very  good,  he  received  us  in  his  parlour,  he 
then  excused  himself  and  withdrew  into  his  bedroom  to  wash  his  hands, 


THE  WAR  157 

and  then  he  invited  us  very  formally  to  come  into  the  dining  room,  it 
was  like  an  old-fashioned  stage  setting. 

We  distributed,  we  drove  around  in  the  snow  we  talked  to  everybody 
and  everybody  talked  to  us  and  by  the  end  of  May  it  was  all  over  and 
we  decided  to  leave. 

We  went  home  by  way  of  Metz,  Verdun  and  Mildred  Aldrich. 

We  once  more  returned  to  a  changed  Paris.  We  were  restless.  Ger- 
trude Stein  began  to  work  very  hard,  it  was  at  this  time  that  she  wrote 
her  Accents  in  Alsace  and  other  political  plays,  the  last  plays  in  Geog- 
raphy and  Plays.  We  were  still  in  the  shadow  of  war  work  and  we  went 
on  doing  some  of  it,  visiting  hospitals  and  seeing  the  soldiers  left  in  them, 
now  pretty  well  neglected  by  everybody.  We  had  spent  a  great  deal  of 
our  money  during  the  war  and  we  were  economising,  servants  were 
difficult  to  get  if  not  impossible,  prices  were  high.  We  settled  down  for 
the  moment  with  a  femme  de  menage  for  only  a  few  hours  a  day.  I 
used  to  say  Gertrude  Stein  was  the  chauffeur  and  I  was  the  cook.  We 
used  to  go  over  early  in  the  morning  to  the  public  markets  and  get  in 
our  provisions.  It  was  a  confused  world. 

Jessie  Whitehead  had  come  over  with  the  peace  commission  as  secre- 
tary to  one  of  the  delegations  and  of  course  we  were  very  interested  in 
knowing  all  about  the  peace.  It  was  then  that  Gertrude  Stein  described 
one  of  the  young  men  of  the  peace  commission  who  was  holding  forth, 
as  one  who  knew  all  about  the  war,  he  had  been  here  ever  since  the 
peace.  Gertrude  Stein's  cousins  came  over,  everybody  came  over,  every- 
body was  dissatisfied  and  every  one  was  restless.  It  was  a  restless  and 
disturbed  world. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  Picasso  quarrelled.  They  neither  of  them  ever  quite 
knew  about  what.  Anyway  they  did  not  see  each  other  for  a  year  and 
then  they  met  by  accident  at  a  party  at  Adrienne  Monnier's.  Picasso  said, 
how  do  you  do  to  her  and  said  something  about  her  coming  to  see  him. 
No  I  will  not,  she  answered  gloomily.  Picasso  came  to  me  and  said,  Ger- 
trude says  she  won't  come  to  see  me,  does  she  mean  it.  I  am  afraid  if 
she  says  it  she  means  it.  They  did  not  see  each  other  for  another  year 
and  in  the  meantime  Picasso's  little  boy  was  born  and  Max  Jacob  was 
complaining  that  he  had  not  been  named  god-father.  A  very  little  while 
after  this  we  were  somewhere  at  some  picture  gallery  and  Picasso  came 
up  and  put  his  hand  on  Gertrude  Stein's  shoulder  and  said,  oh  hell,  let's 
be  friends.  Sure,  said  Gertrude  Stein  and  they  embraced.  When  can  I 


158  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

come  to  see  you,  said  Picasso,  let's  see,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  I  am  afraid 
we  are  busy  but  come  to  dinner  the  end  of  the  week.  Nonsense,  said 
Picasso,  we  are  coming  to  dinner  to-morrow,  and  they  came. 

It  was  a  changed  Paris.  Guillaume  Apollinaire  was  dead.  We  saw  a 
tremendous  number  of  people  but  none  of  them  as  far  as  I  can  remem- 
ber that  we  had  ever  known  before.  Paris  was  crowded.  As  Clive  Bell 
remarked,  they  say  that  an  awful  lot  of  people  were  killed  in  the  war 
but  it  seems  to  me  that  an  extraordinary  large  number  of  grown  men 
and  women  have  suddenly  been  born. 

As  I  say  we  were  restless  and  we  were  economical  and  all  day  and  all 
evening  we  were  seeing  people  and  at  last  there  was  the  defile,  the  pro- 
cession under  the  Arc  de  Triomphe,  of  the  allies. 

The  members  of  the  American  Fund  for  French  Wounded  were  to 
have  seats  on  the  benches  that  were  put  up  the  length  of  the  Champs 
Elysees  but  quite  rightly  the  people  of  Paris  objected  as  these  seats  would 
make  it  impossible  for  them  to  see  the  parade  and  so  Clemenceau 
promptly  had  them  taken  down.  Luckily  for  us  Jessie  Whitehead's  room 
in  her  hotel  looked  right  over  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  and  she  asked  us  to 
come  to  it  to  see  the  parade.  We  accepted  gladly.  It  was  a  wonderful  day. 

We  got  up  at  sunrise,  as  later  it  would  have  been  impossible  to  cross 
Paris  in  a  car.  This  was  one  of  the  last  trips  Auntie  made.  By  this  time 
the  red  cross  was  painted  off  it  but  it  was  still  a  truck.  Very  shortly  after 
it  went  its  honourable  way  and  was  succeeded  by  Godiva,  a  two-seated 
runabout,  also  a  little  ford.  She  was  called  Godiva  because  she  had  come 
naked  into  the  world  and  each  of  our  friends  gave  us  something  with 
which  to  bedeck  her. 

Auntie  then  was  making  practically  her  last  trip.  We  left  her  near  the 
river  and  walked  up  to  the  hotel.  Everybody  was  on  the  streets,  men, 
women  children,  soldiers,  priests,  nuns,  we  saw  two  nuns  being  helped 
into  a  tree  from  which  they  would  be  able  to  see.  And  we  ourselves  were 
admirably  placed  and  we  saw  perfectly. 

We  saw  it  all,  we  saw  first  the  few  wounded  from  the  Invalides  in  their 
wheeling  chairs  wheeling  themselves.  It  is  an  old  french  custom  that  a 
military  procession  should  always  be  preceded  by  the  veterans  from  the 
Invalides.  They  all  marched  past  through  the  Arc  de  Triomphe.  Ger- 
trude Stein  remembered  that  when  as  a  child  she  used  to  swing  on  the 
chains  that  were  around  the  Arc  de  Triomphe  her  governess  had  told 
her  that  no  one  must  walk  underneath  since  the  german  armies  had 


THE  WAR  159 

marched  under  it  after  1870.  And  now  everybody  except  the  germans 
were  passing  through. 

All  the  nations  marched  differently,  some  slowly,  some  quickly,  the 
french  carry  their  flags  the  best  of  all,  Pershing  and  his  officer  carrying 
the  flag  behind  him  were  perhaps  the  most  perfectly  spaced.  It  was  this 
scene  that  Gertrude  Stein  described  in  the  movie  she  wrote  about  this 
time  that  I  have  published  in  Operas  and  Plays  in  the  Plain  Edition. 

However  it  all  finally  came  to  an  end.  We  wandered  up  and  we  wan- 
dered down  the  Champs  Elysees  and  the  war  was  over  and  the  piles  o£ 
captured  cannon  that  had  made  two  pyramids  were  being  taken  away 
and  peace  was  upon  us. 


7     After  the  War-1919-1932 


We  were,  in  these  days  as  I  look  back  at  them,  constantly  seeing  people. 

It  is  a  confused  memory  those  first  years  after  the  war  and  very  diffi- 
cult to  think  back  and  remember  what  happened  before  or  after  some- 
thing else.  Picasso  once  said,  I  have  already  told;  when  Gertrude  Stein 
and  he  were  discussing  dates,  you  forget  that  when  we  were  young  an 
awful  lot  happened  in  a  year.  During  the  years  just  after  the  war  as  I 
look  in  order  to  refresh  my  memory  over  the  bibliography  of  Gertrude 
Stein's  work,  I  am  astonished  when  I  realise  how  many  things  happened 
in  a  year.  Perhaps  we  were  not  so  young  then  but  there  were  a  great 
many  young  in  the  world  and  perhaps  that  comes  to  the  same  thing. 

The  old  crowd  had  disappeared.  Matisse  was  now  permanently  in 
Nice  and  in  any  case  although  Gertrude  Stein  and  he  were  perfectly 
good  friends  when  they  met,  they  practically  never  met.  This  was  the 
time  when  Gertrude  Stein  and  Picasso  were  not  seeing  each  other.  They 
always  talked  with  the  tenderest  friendship  about  each  other  to  any  one 
who  had  known  them  both  but  they  did  not  see  each  other.  Guillaume 
Apollinaire  was  dead.  Braque  and  his  wife  we  saw  from  time  to  time, 
he  and  Picasso  by  this  time  were  fairly  bitterly  on  the  outs.  I  remember 
one  evening  Man  Ray  brought  a  photograph  that  he  had  made  of  Picasso 
to  the  house  and  Braque  happened  to  be  there.  The  photograph  was 
being  passed  around  and  when  it  came  to  Braque  he  looked  at  it  and 
said,  I  ought  to  know  who  that  gentleman  is,  je  dois  connaitre  ce  mon- 
sieur. It  was  a  period  this  and  a  very  considerable  time  afterward  that 
Gertrude  Stein  celebrated  under  the  title,  Of  Having  for  a  Long  Time 
Not  Continued  to  be  Friends. 

Juan  Gris  was  ill  and  discouraged.  He  had  been  very  ill  and  was  never 
really  well  again.  Privation  and  discouragement  had  had  their  effect. 
Kahnweiler  came  back  to  Paris  fairly  early  after  the  war  but  all  his  old 
crowd  with  the  exception  of  Juan  were  too  successful  to  have  need  of 
him.  Mildred  Aldrich  had  had  her  tremendous  success  with  the  Hilltop 

160 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  161 

on  the  Marne,  in  Mildred's  way  she  had  spent  royally  all  she  had  earned 
royally  and  was  now  still  spending  and  enjoying  it  although  getting  a 
little  uneasy.  We  used  to  go  out  and  see  her  about  once  a  month,  in  fact 
all  the  rest  of  her  life  we  always  managed  to  get  out  to  see  her  regularly. 
Even  in  the  days  of  her  very  greatest  glory  she  loved  a  visit  from  Ger- 
trude Stein  better  than  a  visit  from  anybody  else.  In  fact  it  was  largely 
to  please  Mildred  that  Gertrude  Stein  tried  to  get  the  Atlantic  Monthly 
to  print  something  of  hers.  Mildred  always  felt  and  said  that  it  would 
be  a  blue  ribbon  if  the  Atlantic  Monthly  consented,  which  of  course  it 
never  did.  Another  thing  used  to  annoy  Mildred  dreadfully.  Gertrude 
Stein's  name  was  never  in  Who's  Who  in  America.  As  a  matter  of  fact 
it  was  in  english  authors'  bibliographies  before  it  ever  entered  an  ameri- 
can  one.  This  troubled  Mildred  very  much.  I  hate  to  look  at  Who's  Who 
in  America,  she  said  to  me,  when  I  see  all  those  insignificant  people  and 
Gertrude's  name  not  in.  And  then  she  would  say,  I  know  it's  alright 
but  I  wish  Gertrude  were  not  so  outlawed.  Poor  Mildred.  And  now  just 
this  year  for  reasons  best  known  to  themselves  Who's  Who  has  added 
Gertrude  Stein's  name  to  their  list.  The  Atlantic  Monthly  needless  to  say 
has  not. 

The  Atlantic  Monthly  story  is  rather  funny. 

As  I  said  Gertrude  Stein  sent  the  Atlantic  Monthly  some  manuscripts, 
not  with  any  hope  of  their  accepting  them,  but  if  by  any  miracle  they 
should,  she  would  be  pleased  and  Mildred  delighted.  An  answer  came 
back,  a  long  and  rather  argumentative  answer  from  the  editorial  office. 
Gertrude  Stein  thinking  that  some  Boston  woman  in  the  editorial  office 
had  written,  answered  the  arguments  lengthily  to  Miss  Ellen  Sedgwick. 
She  received  an  almost  immediate  answer  meeting  all  her  arguments 
and  at  the  same  time  admitting  that  the  matter  was  not  without  interest 
but  that  of  course  Atlantic  Monthly  readers  could  not  be  affronted  by 
having  these  manuscripts  presented  in  the  review,  but  it  might  be  pos- 
sible to  have  them  introduced  by  somebody  in  the  part  of  the  magazine, 
if  I  remember  rightly,  called  the  Contributors'  Club.  The  letter  ended 
by  saying  that  the  writer  was  not  Ellen  but  Ellery  Sedgwick. 

Gertrude  Stein  of  course  was  delighted  with  its  being  Ellery  and  not 
Ellen  and  accepted  being  printed  in  the  Contributors'  Club,  but  equally 
of  course  the  manuscripts  did  not  appear  even  in  the  part  called  Con- 
tributors' Club. 

We  began  to  meet  new  people  all  the  time. 


162  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Some  one  told  us,  I  have  forgotten  who,  that  an  american  woman  had 
started  a  lending  library  of  english  books  in  our  quarter.  We  had  in  those 
days  of  economy  given  up  Mudie's,  but  there  was  the  American  Library 
which  supplied  us  a  little,  but  Gertrude  Stein  wanted  more.  We  inves- 
tigated and  we  found  Sylvia  Beach.  Sylvia  Beach  was  very  enthusiastic 
about  Gertrude  Stein  and  they  became  friends.  She  was  Sylvia  Beach's 
first  annual  subscriber  and  Sylvia  Beach  was  proportionately  proud  and 
grateful.  Her  little  place  was  in  a  little  street  near  the  Ecole  de  Medecine. 
It  was  not  then  much  frequented  by  americans.  There  was  the  author 
of  Beebie  the  Beebeist  and  there  was  the  niece  of  Marcel  Schwob  and 
there  were  a  few  stray  irish  poets.  We  saw  a  good  deal  of  Sylvia  those 
days,  she  used  to  come  to  the  house  and  also  go  out  into  the  country  with 
us  in  the  old  car.  We  met  Adrienne  Monnier  and  she  brought  Valery 
Larbaud  to  the  house  and  they  were  all  very  interested  in  Three  Lives 
and  Valery  Larbaud,  so  we  understood,  meditated  translating  it.  It  was 
at  this  time  that  Tristan  Tzara  first  appeared  in  Paris.  Adrienne  Monnier 
was  much  excited  by  his  advent.  Picabia  had  found  him  in  Switzerland 
during  the  war  and  they  had  together  created  dadaism,  and  out  of 
dadaism,  with  a  great  deal  of  struggle  and  quarrelling  came  surrealisme. 

Tzara  came  to  the  house,  I  imagine  Picabia  brought  him  but  I  am 
not  quite  certain.  I  have  always  found  it  very  difficult  to  understand  the 
stories  of  his  violence  and  his  wickedness,  at  least  I  found  it  difficult 
then  because  Tzara  when  he  came  to  the  house  sat  beside  me  at 
the  tea  table  and  talked  to  me  like  a  pleasant  and  not  very  exciting  cousin. 

Adrienne  Monnier  wanted  Sylvia  to  move  to  the  rue  de  1'Odeon  and 
Sylvia  hesitated  but  finally  she  did  so  and  as  a  matter  of  fact  we  did 
not  see  her  very  often  afterward.  They  gave  a  party  just  after  Sylvia 
moved  in  and  we  went  and  there  Gertrude  Stein  first  discovered  that 
she  had  a  young  Oxford  following.  There  were  several  young  Oxford 
men  mere  and  they  were  awfully  pleased  to  meet  her  and  they  asked 
her  to  give  them  some  manuscripts  and  they  published  them  that  year 
nineten  twenty,  in  the  Oxford  Magazine. 

Sylvia  Beach  from  time  to  time  brought  groups  of  people  to  the  house, 
groups  of  young  writers  and  some  older  women  with  them.  It  was  at 
that  time  that  Ezra  Pound  came,  no  that  was  brought  about  in  another 
way.  She  later  ceased  coming  to  the  house  but  she  sent  word  that  Sher- 
wood Anderson  had  come  to  Paris  and  wanted  to  see  Gertrude  Stein 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  163 

and  might  he  come.  Gertrude  Stein  sent  back  word  that  she  would  be 
very  pleased  and  he  came  with  his  wife  and  Rosenfeld,  the  musical  critic. 

For  some  reason  or  other  I  was  not  present  on  this  occasion,  some 
domestic  complication  in  all  probability,  at  any  rate  when  I  did  come 
home  Gertrude  Stein  was  moved  and  pleased  as  she  has  very  rarely 
been.  Gertrude  Stein  was  in  those  days  a  little  bitter,  all  her  unpublished 
manuscripts,  and  no  hope  of  publication  or  serious  recognition.  Sher- 
wood Anderson  came  and  quite  simply  and  directly  as  is  his  way  told 
her  what  he  thought  of  her  work  and  what  it  had  meant  to  him  in  his 
development.  He  told  it  to  her  then  and  what  was  even  rarer  he  told  it 
in  print  immediately  after.  Gertrude  Stein  and  Sherwood  Anderson  have 
always  been  the  best  of  friends  but  I  do  not  believe  even  he  realises  how 
much  his  visit  meant  to  her.  It  was  he  who  thereupon  wrote  the  intro- 
duction to  Geography  and  Plays. 

In  those  days  you  met  anybody  anywhere.  The  Jewetts  were  an  ameri- 
can  couple  who  owned  a  tenth  century  chateau  near  Perpignan.  We 
had  met  them  there  during  the  war  and  when  they  came  to  Paris  we 
went  to  see  them.  There  we  met  first  Man  Ray  and  later  Robert  Coates, 
how  either  of  them  happened  to  get  there  I  do  not  know. 

There  were  a  lot  of  people  in  the  room  when  we  came  in  and  soon 
Gertrude  Stein  was  talking  to  a  little  man  who  sat  in  the  corner.  As  we 
went  out  she  made  an  engagement  with  him.  She  said  he  was  a  photog- 
rapher and  seemed  interesting,  and  reminded  me  that  Jeanne  Cook, 
William  Cook's  wife,  wanted  her  picture  taken  to  send  to  Cook's  people 
in  America.  We  all  three  went  to  Man  Ray's  hotel.  It  was  one  of  the 
little,  tiny  hotels  in  the  rue  Delambre  and  Man  Ray  had  one  of  the  small 
rooms,  but  I  have  never  seen  any  space,  not  even  a  ship's  cabin,  with  so 
many  things  in  it  and  the  things  so  admirably  disposed.  He  had  a  bed, 
he  had  three  large  cameras,  he  had  several  kinds  of  lighting,  he  had  a 
window  screen,  and  in  a  little  closet  he  did  all  his  developing.  He  showed 
us  pictures  of  Marcel  Duchamp  and  a  lot  of  other  people  and  he  asked 
if  he  might  come  and  take  photographs  of  the  studio  and  of  Gertrude 
Stein.  He  did  and  he  also  took  some  of  me  and  we  were  very  pleased 
with  the  result.  He  has  at  intervals  taken  pictures  of  Gertrude  Stein  and 
she  is  always  fascinated  with  his  way  of  using  lights.  She  always  comes 
home  very  pleased.  One  day  she  told  him  that  she  liked  his  photographs 
of  her  better  than  any  that  had  ever  been  taken  except  one  snap  shot  I 


164  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

had  taken  of  her  recently.  This  seemed  to  bother  Man  Ray.  In  a  little 
while  he  asked  her  to  come  and  pose  and  she  did.  He  said,  move  all  you 
like,  your  eyes,  your  head,  it  is  to  be  a  pose  but  it  is  to  have  in  it  all  the 
qualities  of  a  snap  shot.  The  poses  were  very  long,  she,  as  he  requested, 
moved,  and  the  result,  the  last  photographs  he  made  of  her,  are  extraor- 
dinarily interesting. 

Robert  Coates  we  also  met  at  the  Jewetts'  in  those  early  days  just  after 
the  war.  I  remember  the  day  very  well.  It  was  a  cold,  dark  day,  on  an 
upper  floor  of  a  hotel.  There  were  a  number  of  young  men  there  and 
suddenly  Gertrude  Stein  said  she  had  forgotten  to  put  the  light  on  her 
car  and  she  did  not  want  another  fine,  we  had  just  had  one  because  I 
had  blown  the  klaxon  at  a  policeman  trying  to  get  him  out  of  our  way 
and  she  had  received  one  by  going  the  wrong  way  around  a  post.  Alright, 
said  a  red-haired  young  man  and  immediately  he  was  down  and  back. 
The  light  is  on,  he  announced.  How  did  you  know  which  my  car  was, 
asked  Gertrude  Stein.  Oh  I  knew,  said  Coates.  We  always  liked  Coates. 
It  is  extraordinary  in  wandering  about  Paris  how  very  few  people  you 
know  you  meet,  but  we  often  met  Coates  hatless  and  read-headed  in 
the  most  unexpected  places.  This  was  just  about  the  time  of  Broom, 
about  which  I  will  tell  very  soon,  and  Gertrude  Stein  took  a  very  deep 
interest  in  Coates'  work  as  soon  as  he  showed  it  to  her.  She  said  he  was 
the  one  young  man  who  had  an  individual  rhythm,  his  words  made  a 
sound  to  the  eyes,  most  people's  words  do  not.  We  also  liked  Coates' 
address,  the  City  Hotel,  on  the  island,  and  we  liked  all  his  ways. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  delighted  with  the  scheme  of  study  that  he  pre- 
pared for  the  Guggenheim  prize.  Unfortunately,  the  scheme  of  study, 
which  was  a  most  charming  little  novel,  with  Gertrude  Stein  as  a  backer, 
did  not  win  a  prize. 

As  I  have  said  there  was  Broom. 

Before  the  war  we  had  known  a  young  fellow,  not  known  him  much 
but  a  little;  Elmer  Harden,  who  was  in  Paris  studying  music.  During 
the  war  we  heard  that  Elmer  Harden  had  joined  the  french  army  and 
had  been  badly  wounded.  It  was  rather  an  amazing  story.  Elmer  Harden 
had  been  nursing  french  wounded  in  the  american  hospital  and  one  of 
his  patients,  a  captain  with  an  arm  fairly  disabled,  was  going  back  to  the 
front.  Elmer  Harden  could  not  content  himself  any  longer  nursing.  He 
said  to  Captain  Peter,  I  am  going  with  you.  But  it  is  impossible,  said 
Captain  Peter.  But  I  am,  said  Elmer  stubbornly.  So  they  took  a  taxi  and 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  165 

they  went  to  the  war  office  and  to  a  dentist  and  I  don't  know  where  else, 
but  by  the  end  of  the  week  Captain  Peter  had  rejoined  and  Elmer 
Harden  was  in  his  regiment  as  a  soldier.  He  fought  well  and  was 
wounded.  After  the  war  we  met  him  again  and  then  we  met  often.  He 
and  the  lovely  flowers  he  used  to  send  us  were  a  great  comfort  in  those 
days  just  after  the  peace.  He  and  I  always  say  that  he  and  I  will  be  the 
last  people  of  our  generation  to  remember  the  war.  I  am  afraid  we  both 
of  us  have  already  forgotten  it  a  little.  Only  the  other  day  though  Elmer 
announced  that  he  had  had  a  great  triumph,  he  had  made  Captain  Peter 
and  Captain  Peter  is  a  breton  admit  that  it  was  a  nice  war.  Up  to  this 
time  when  he  had  said  to  Captain  Peter,  it  was  a  nice  war,  Captain  Peter 
had  not  answered,  but  this  time  when  Elmer  said,  it  was  a  nice  war,  Cap- 
tain Peter  said,  yes  Elmer,  it  was  a  nice  war. 

Kate  Buss  came  from  the  same  town  as  Elmer,  from  Medford,  Mass. 
She  was  in  Paris  and  she  came  to  see  us.  I  do  not  think  Elmer  intro- 
duced her  but  she  did  come  to  see  us.  She  was  much  interested  in  the 
writings  of  Gertrude  Stein  and  owned  everything  that  up  to  that  time 
could  be  bought.  She  brought  Kreymborg  to  see  us.  Kreymborg  had 
come  to  Paris  with  Harold  Loeb  to  start  Broom.  Kreymborg  and  his 
wife  came  to  the  house  frequently.  He  wanted  very  much  to  run  The 
Long  Gay  Book,  the  thing  Gertrude  Stein  had  written  just  after  The 
Making  of  Americans,  as  a  serial.  Of  course  Harold  Loeb  would  not 
consent  to  that.  Kreymborg  used  to  read  out  the  sentences  from  this 
book  with  great  gusto.  He  and  Gertrude  Stein  had  a  bond  of  union  be- 
side their  mutual  liking  because  the  Grafton  Press  that  had  printed 
Three  Lives  had  printed  his  first  book  and  about  the  same  time. 

Kate  Buss  brought  lots  of  people  to  the  house.  She  brought  Djuna 
Barnes  and  Mina  Loy  and  they  had  wanted  to  bring  James  Joyce  but 
they  didn't.  We  were  glad  to  see  Mina  whom  we  had  known  in  Florence 
as  Mina  Haweis.  Mina  brought  Glenway  Wescott  on  his  first  trip  to 
Europe.  Glenway  impressed  us  greatly  by  his  english  accent.  Heming- 
way explained.  He  said,  when  you  matriculate  at  the  University  of 
Chicago  you  write  down  just  what  accent  you  will  have  and  they  give 
it  to  you  when  you  graduate.  You  can  have  a  sixteenth  century  or 
modern,  whatever  you  like.  Glenway  left  behind  him  a  silk  cigarette 
case  with  his  initials,  we  kept  it  until  he  came  back  again  and  then  gave 
it  to  him. 

Mina  also  brought  Robert  McAlmon.  McAlmon  was  very  nice  in 


166  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

those  days,  very  mature  and  very  good-looking.  It  was  much  later  that 
he  published  The  Making  of  Americans  in  the  Contact  press  and  that 
everybody  quarrelled.  But  that  is  Paris,  except  that  as  a  matter  of  fact 
Gertrude  Stein  and  he  never  became  friends  again. 

Kate  Buss  brought  Ernest  Walsh,  he  was  very  young  then  and  very 
feverish  and  she  was  very  worried  about  him.  We  met  him  later  with 
Hemingway  and  then  in  Belley,  but  we  never  knew  him  very  well. 

We  met  Ezra  Pound  at  Grace  Lounsbery's  house,  he  came  home  to 
dinner  with  us  and  he  stayed  and  he  talked  about  Japanese  prints  among 
other  things.  Gertrude  Stein  liked  him  but  did  not  find  him  amusing. 
She  said  he  was  a  village  explainer,  excellent  if  you  were  a  village,  but  if 
you  were  not,  not.  Ezra  also  talked  about  T.  S.  Eliot.  It  was  the  first 
time  any  one  had  talked  about  T.S.  at  the  house.  Pretty  soon  everybody 
talked  about  T.S.  Kitty  Buss  talked  about  him  and  much  later  Heming- 
way talked  about  him  as  the  Major.  Considerably  later  Lady  Rother- 
mere  talked  about  him  and  invited  Gertrude  Stein  to  come  and  meet 
him.  They  were  founding  the  Criterion.  We  had  met  Lady  Rothermere 
through  Muriel  Draper  whom  we  had  seen  again  for  the  first  time  after 
many  years.  Gertrude  Stein  was  not  particularly  anxious  to  go  to  Lady 
Rothermere's  and  meet  T.  S.  Eliot,  but  we  all  insisted  she  should,  and 
she  gave  a  doubtful  yes.  I  had  no  evening  dress  to  wear  for  this  occasion 
and  started  to  make  one.  The  bell  rang  and  in  walked  Lady  Rothermere 
and  T.S. 

Eliot  and  Gertrude  Stein  had  a  solemn  conversation,  mostly  about 
split  infinitives  and  other  grammatical  solecisms  and  why  Gertrude 
Stein  used  them.  Finally  Lady  Rothermere  and  Eliot  rose  to  go  and 
Eliot  said  that  if  he  printed  anything  of  Gertrude  Stein's  in  the  Criterion 
it  would  have  to  be  her  very  latest  thing.  They  left  and  Gertrude  Stein 
said,  don't  bother  to  finish  your  dress,  now  we  don't  have  to  go,  and  she 
began  to  write  a  portrait  of  T.  S.  Eliot  and  called  it  the  fifteenth  of  No- 
vember, that  being  this  day  and  so  there  could  be  no  doubt  but  that  it 
was  her  latest  thing.  It  was  all  about  wool  is  wool  and  silk  is  silk  or 
wool  is  woollen  and  silk  is  silken.  She  sent  it  to  T.  S.  Eliot  and  he  ac- 
cepted it  but  naturally  he  did  not  print  it. 

Then  began  a  long  correspondence,  not  between  Gertrude  Stein  and 
T.  E.  Eliot,  but  between  T.  S.  Eliot's  secretary  and  myself.  We  each  ad- 
dressed the  other  as  Sir,  I  signing  myself  A.  B.  Toklas  and  she  signing 
initials.  It  was  only  considerably  afterwards  that  I  found  out  that  his 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  167 

secretary  was  not  a  young  man.  I  don't  know  whether  she  ever  found 
out  that  I  was  not. 

In  spite  of  all  this  correspondence  nothing  happened  and  Gertrude 
Stein  mischievously  told  the  story  to  all  the  english  people  coming  to 
the  house  and  at  that  moment  there  were  a  great  many  english  coming 
in  and  out.  At  any  rate  finally  there  was  a  note,  it  was  now  early  spring, 
from  the  Criterion  asking  would  Miss  Stein  mind  if  her  contribution 
appeared  in  the  October  number.  She  replied  that  nothing  could  be 
more  suitable  than  the  fifteenth  of  November  on  the  fifteenth  of  October. 

Once  more  a  long  silence  and  then  this  time  came  proof  of  the  article. 
We  were  surprised  but  returned  the  proof  promptly.  Apparently  a  young 
man  had  sent  it  without  authority  because  very  shortly  came  an  apolo- 
getic letter  saying  that  there  had  been  a  mistake,  the  article  was  not  to  be 
printed  just  yet.  This  was  also  told  to  the  passing  english  with  the  result 
that  after  all  it  was  printed.  Thereafter  it  was  reprinted  in  the  Georgian 
Stories.  Gertrude  Stein  was  delighted  when  later  she  was  told  that  Eliot 
had  said  in  Cambridge  that  the  work  of  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  fine 
but  not  for  us. 

But  to  come  back  to  Ezra.  Ezra  did  come  back  and  he  came  back  with 
the  editor  of  The  Dial.  This  time  it  was  worse  than  Japanese  prints,  it 
was  much  more  violent.  In  his  surprise  at  the  violence  Ezra  fell  out  of 
Gertrude  Stein's  favourite  little  armchair,  the  one  I  have  since  tapestried 
with  Picasso  designs,  and  Gertrude  Stein  was  furious.  Finally  Ezra  and 
the  editor  of  The  Dial  left,  nobody  too  well  pleased.  Gertrude  Stein  did 
not  want  to  see  Ezra  again.  Ezra  did  not  quite  see  why.  He  met  Ger- 
trude Stein  one  day  near  the  Luxembourg  gardens  and  said,  but  I  do 
want  to  come  to  see  you.  I  am  so  sorry,  answered  Gertrude  Stein,  but  Miss 
Toklas  has  a  bad  tooth  and  beside  we  are  busy  picking  wild  flowers. 
All  of  which  was  literally  true,  like  all  of  Gertrude  Stein's  literature,  but 
it  upset  Ezra,  and  we  never  saw  him  again. 

During  these  months  after  the  war  we  were  one  day  going  down  a 
little  street  and  saw  a  man  looking  in  at  a  window  and  going  backwards 
and  forwards  and  right  and  left  and  otherwise  behaving  strangely.  Lip- 
schitz,  said  Gertrude  Stein.  Yes,  said  Lipschitz,  I  am  buying  an  iron 
cock.  Where  is  it,  we  asked.  Why  in  there,  he  said,  and  in  there  it  was. 
Gertrude  Stein  had  known  Lipschitz  very  slightly  at  one  time  but  this 
incident  made  them  friends  and  soon  he  asked  her  to  pose.  He  had 
just  finished  a  bust  of  Jean  Cocteau  and  he  wanted  to  do  her.  She  never 


168  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

minds  posing,  she  likes  the  calm  of  it  and  although  she  does  not  like 
sculpture  and  told  Lipschitz  so,  she  began  to  pose.  I  remember  it  was  a 
very  hot  spring  and  Lipschitz's  studio  was  appallingly  hot  and  they 
spent  hours  there. 

Lipschitz  is  an  excellent  gossip  and  Gertrude  Stein  adores  the  begin- 
ning and  middle  and  end  of  a  story  and  Lipschitz  was  able  to  supply 
several  missing  parts  of  several  stories. 

And  then  they  talked  about  art  and  Gertrude  Stein  rather  liked  her 
portrait  and  they  were  very  good  friends  and  the  sittings  were  over. 

One  day  we  were  across  town  at  a  picture  show  and  somebody  came 
up  to  Gertrude  Stein  and  said  something.  She  said,  wiping  her  forehead, 
it  is  hot.  He  said  he  was  a  friend  of  Lipschitz  and  she  answered,  yes  it 
was  hot  there.  Lipschitz  was  to  bring  her  some  photographs  of  the  head 
he  had  done  but  he  did  not  and  we  were  awfully  busy  and  Gertrude 
Stein  sometimes  wondered  why  Lipschitz  did  not  come.  Somebody 
wanted  the  photos  so  she  wrote  to  him  to  bring  them.  He  came.  She  said 
why  did  you  not  come  before.  He  said  he  did  not  come  before  because 
he  had  been  told  by  some  one  to  whom  she  had  said  it,  that  she  was 
bored  sitting  for  him.  Oh  hell,  she  said,  listen  I  am  fairly  well  known 
for  saying  things  about  any  one  and  anything,  I  say  them  about  people, 
I  say  them  to  people,  I  say  them  when  I  please  and  how  I  please  but  as 
I  mostly  say  what  I  think,  the  least  that  you  or  anybody  else  can  do  is 
to  rest  content  with  what  I  say  to  you.  He  seemed  very  content  and  they 
talked  happily  and  pleasantly  and  they  said  a  bientot,  we  will  meet  soon. 
Lipschitz  left  and  we  did  not  see  him  for  several  years. 

Then  Jane  Heap  turned  up  and  wanted  to  take  some  of  Lipschitz's 
things  to  America  and  she  wanted  Gertrude  Stein  to  come  and  choose 
them.  But  how  can  I,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  when  Lipschitz  is  very  evi- 
dently angry,  I  am  sure  I  have  not  the  slightest  idea  why  or  how  but  he 
is.  Jane  Heap  said  that  Lipschitz  said  that  he  was  fonder  of  Gertrude 
Stein  than  he  was  of  almost  anybody  and  was  heart  broken  at  not  seeing 
her.  Oh,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  I  am  very  fond  of  him.  Sure  I  will  go  with 
you.  She  went,  they  embraced  tenderly  and  had  a  happy  time  and  her 
only  revenge  was  in  parting  to  say  to  Lipschitz,  a  tres  bientot.  And  Lip- 
schitz said,  comme  vous  etes  mechante.  They  have  been  excellent  friends 
ever  since  and  Gertrude  Stein  has  done  of  Lipschitz  one  of  her  most 
lovely  portraits  but  they  have  never  spoken  of  the  quarrel  and  if  he 
knows  what  happened  the  second  time  she  does  not. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  169 

It  was  through  Lipschitz  that  Gertrude  Stein  again  met  Jean  Cocteau. 
Lipschitz  had  told  Gertrude  Stein  a  thing  which  she  did  not  know,  that 
Cocteau  in  his  Potomak  had  spoken  of  and  quoted  The  Portrait  of 
Mabel  Dodge.  She  was  naturally  very  pleased  as  Cocteau  was  the  first 
french  writer  to  speak  of  her  work.  They  met  once  or  twice  and  began  a 
friendship  that  consists  in  their  writing  to  each  other  quite  often  and 
liking  each  other  immensely  and  having  many  young  and  old  friends 
in  common,  but  not  in  meeting. 

Jo  Davidson  too  sculptured  Gertrude  Stein  at  this  time.  There,  all  was 
peaceful,  Jo  was  witty  and  amusing  and  he  pleased  Gertrude  Stein.  I 
cannot  remember  who  came  in  and  out,  whether  they  were  real  or 
whether  they  were  sculptured  but  there  were  a  great  many.  There  were' 
among  others  Lincoln  Steflfens  and  in  some  queer  way  he  is  associated 
with  the  beginning  of  our  seeing  a  good  deal  of  Janet  Scudder  but  I 
do  not  well  remember  just  what  happened. 

I  do  however  remember  very  well  the  first  time  I  ever  heard  Janet 
Scudder 's  voice.  It  was  way  back  when  I  first  came  to  Paris  and  my 
friend  and  I  had  a  little  apartment  in  the  rue  Notre-Dame-des-Champs. 
My  friend  in  the  enthusiasm  of  seeing  other  people  enthusiastic  had 
bought  a  Matisse  and  it  had  just  been  hung  on  the  wall.  Mildred  Aldrich 
was  calling  on  us,  it  was  a  warm  spring  afternoon  and  Mildred  was  lean- 
ing out  of  the  window.  I  suddenly  heard  her  say,  Janet,  Janet  come  up 
here.  What  is  it,  said  a  very  lovely  drawling  voice.  I  want  you  to  come 
up  here  and  meet  my  friends  Harriet  and  Alice  and  I  want  you  to  come 
up  and  see  their  new  apartment.  Oh,  said  the  voice.  And  then  Mildred 
said,  and  they  have  a  new  big  Matisse.  Come  up  and  see  it.  I  don't  think 
so,  said  the  voice. 

Janet  did  later  see  a  great  deal  of  Matisse  when  he  lived  out  in  Clamart. 
And  Gertrude  Stein  and  she  had  always  been  friends,  at  least  ever  since 
the  period  when  they  first  began  to  see  a  good  deal  of  each  other. 

Like  Doctor  Claribel  Cone,  Janet,  always  insisting  that  she  under- 
stands none  of  it,  reads  and  feels  Gertrude  Stein's  work  and  reads  it 
aloud  understandingly. 

We  were  going  to  the  valley  of  the  Rhone  for  the  first  time  since  the 
war  and  Janet  and  a  friend  in  a  duplicate  Godiva  were  to  come  too.  I 
will  tell  about  this  very  soon. 

During  all  these  restless  months  we  were  also  trying  to  get  Mildred 
Aldrich  the  legion  of  honour.  After  the  war  was  over  a  great  many  war- 


170  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

workers  were  given  the  legion  of  honour  but  they  were  all  members 
of  organisations  and  Mildred  Aldrich  was  not.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very 
anxious  that  Mildred  Aldrich  should  have  it.  In  the  first  place  she 
thought  she  ought,  no  one  else  had  done  as  much  propaganda  for  France 
as  she  had  by  her  books  which  everybody  in  America  read,  and  beside 
she  knew  Mildred  would  like  it.  So  we  began  the  campaign.  It  was  not 
a  very  easy  thing  to  accomplish  as  naturally  the  organizations  had  the 
most  influence.  We  started  different  people  going.  We  began  to  get  lists 
of  prominent  americans  and  asked  them  to  sign.  They  did  not  refuse, 
but  a  list  in  itself  helps,  but  does  not  accomplish  results.  Mr.  Jaccacci  who 
had  a  great  admiration  for  Miss  Aldrich  was  very  helpful  but  all  the 
people  that  he  knew  wanted  things  for  themselves  first.  We  got  the 
American  Legion  interested  at  least  two  of  the  colonels,  but  they  also 
had  other  names  that  had  to  pass  first.  We  had  seen  and  talked  to  and 
interested  everybody  and  everybody  promised  and  nothing  happened. 
Finally  we  met  a  senator.  He  would  be  helpful  but  then  senators  were 
busy  and  then  one  afternoon  we  met  the  senator's  secretary.  Gertrude 
Stein  drove  the  senator's  secretary  home  in  Godiva. 

As  it  turned  out  the  senator's  secretary  had  tried  to  learn  to  drive  a  car 
and  had  not  succeeded.  The  way  in  which  Gertrude  Stein  made  her 
way  through  Paris  traffic  with  the  ease  and  indifference  of  a  chauffeur, 
and  was  at  the  same  time  a  well  known  author  impressed  her  im- 
mensely. She  said  she  would  get  Mildred  Aldrich's  papers  out  of  the 
pigeon  hole  in  which  they  were  probably  reposing  and  she  did.  Very 
shortly  after  the  mayor  of  Mildred's  village  called  upon  her  one  morning 
on  official  business.  He  presented  her  with  the  preliminary  papers  to 
be  signed  for  the  legion  of  honour.  He  said  to  her,  you  must  remember, 
Mademoiselle,  these  matters  often  start  but  do  not  get  themselves  accom- 
plished. So  you  must  be  prepared  for  disappointment.  Mildred  answered 
quietly,  monsieur  le  maire,  if  my  friends  have  started  a  matter  of  this 
kind  they  will  see  to  it  that  it  is  accomplished.  And  it  was.  When  we  ar- 
rived at  Avignon  on  our  way  to  Saint-Remy  there  was  a  telegram  telling 
us  that  Mildred  had  her  decoration.  We  were  delighted  and  Mildred 
Aldrich  to  the  day  of  her  death  never  lost  her  pride  and  pleasure  in  her 
honour. 

During  these  early  restless  years  after  the  war  Gertrude  Stein  worked 
a  great  deal.  Not  as  in  the  old  days,  night  after  night,  but  anywhere,  in 
between  visits,  in  the  automobile  while  she  was  waiting  in  the  street 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  171 

while  I  did  errands,  while  posing.  She  was  particularly  fond  in  these 
days  of  working  in  the  automobile  while  it  stood  in  the  crowded  streets. 

It  was  then  that  she  wrote  Finer  Than  Melanctha  as  a  joke.  Harold 
Loeb,  at  that  time  editing  Broom  all  by  himself,  said  he  would  like  to 
have  something  of  hers  that  would  be  as  fine  as  Melanctha,  her  early 
negro  story  in  Three  Lives. 

She  was  much  influenced  by  the  sound  of  the  streets  and  the  move- 
ment of  the  automobiles.  She  also  liked  then  to  set  a  sentence  for  herself 
as  a  sort  of  tuning  fork  and  metronome  and  then  write  to  that  time  and 
tune.  Mildred's  Thoughts,  published  in  The  American  Caravan,  was 
one  of  these  experiments  she  thought  most  successful.  The  Birthplace 
of  Bonnes,  published  in  The  Little  Review,  was  another  one.  Moral 
Tales  of  1920—1921,  American  Biography,  and  One  Hundred  Prominent 
Men,  when  as  she  said  she  created  out  of  her  imagination  one  hundred 
men  equally  men  and  all  equally  prominent  were  written  then.  These 
two  were  later  printed  in  Useful  Knowledge. 

It  was  also  about  this  time  that  Harry  Gibb  came  back  to  Paris  for  a 
short  while.  He  was  very  anxious  that  Gertrude  Stein  should  publish  a 
book  of  her  work  showing  what  she  had  been  doing  in  those  years.  Not 
a  little  book,  he  kept  saying,  a  big  book,  something  they  can  get  their 
teeth  into.  You  must  do  it,  he  used  to  say.  But  no  publisher  will  look  at 
it  now  that  John  Lane  is  no  longer  active,  she  said.  It  makes  no  differ- 
ence, said  Harry  Gibb  violently,  it  is  the  essence  of  the  thing  that  they 
must  see  and  you  must  have  a  lot  of  things  printed,  and  then  turning  to 
me  he  said,  Alice  you  do  it.  I  knew  he  was  right  and  that  it  had  to  be 
done.  But  how. 

I  talked  to  Kate  Buss  about  it  and  she  suggested  the  Four  Seas  Com- 
pany who  had  done  a  little  book  for  her.  I  began  a  correspondence  with 
Mr.  Brown,  Honest  to  God  Brown  as  Gertrude  Stein  called  him  in  imi- 
tation of  William  Cook's  phrase  when  everything  was  going  particularly 
wrong.  The  arrangements  with  Honest  to  God  having  finally  been  made 
we  left  for  the  south  in  July,  nineteen  twenty-two. 

We  started  off  in  Godiva,  the  runabout  ford  and  followed  by  Janet 
Scudder  in  a  second  Godiva  accompanied  by  Mrs.  Lane.  They  were 
going  to  Grasse  to  buy  themselves  a  home,  they  finally  bought  one  near 
Aix-en-Provence.  And  we  were  going  to  Saint-Remy  to  visit  in  peace  the 
country  we  had  loved  during  the  war. 

We  were  only  a  hundred  or  so  kilometers  from  Paris  when  Janet 


172  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Scudder  tooted  xher  horn  which  was  the  signal  agreed  upon  for  us  to 
stop  and  wait.  Janet  came  alongside.  I  think,  said  she  solemnly,  Gertrude 
Stein  always  called  her  The  Doughboy,  she  always  said  there  were  only 
two  perfectly  solemn  things  on  earth,  the  doughboy  and  Janet  Scudder. 
Janet  had  also,  Gertrude  Stein  always  said,  all  the  subtlety  of  the  dough- 
boy and  all  his  nice  ways  and  all  his  lonesomeness.  Janet  came  alongside, 
I  think,  she  said  solemnly,  we  are  not  on  the  right  road,  it  says  Paris- 
Perpignan  and  I  want  to  go  to  Grasse. 

Anyway  at  the  time  we  got  no  further  than  Lome  and  there  we  sud- 
denly realised  how  tired  we  were.  We  were  just  tired. 

We  suggested  that  the  others  should  move  on  to  Grasse  but  they  said 
they  too  would  wait  and  we  all  waited.  It  was  the  first  time  we  had 
just  stayed  still  since  Palma  de  Mallorca,  since  1916.  Finally  we  moved 
slowly  on  to  Saint-Remy  and  they  went  further  to  Grasse  and  then  came 
back.  They  asked  us  what  we  were  going  to  do  and  we  answered,  noth- 
ing just  stay  here.  So  they  went  off  again  and  bought  a  property  in  Aix- 
en-Provence. 

Janet  Scudder,  as  Gertrude  Stein  always  said,  had  the  real  pioneer's 
passion  for  buying  useless  real  estate.  In  every  little  town  we  stopped 
on  the  way  Janet  would  find  a  piece  of  property  that  she  considered  pur- 
chasable and  Gertrude  Stein,  violently  protesting,  got  her  away.  She 
wanted  to  buy  property  everywhere  except  in  Grasse  where  she  had  gone 
to  buy  property.  She  finally  did  buy  a  house  and  grounds  in  Aix-en- 
Provence  after  insisting  on  Gertrude  Stein's  seeing  it  who  told  her  not 
to  and  telegraphed  no  and  telephoned  no.  However  Janet  did  buy  it  but 
luckily  after  a  year  she  was  able  to  get  rid  of  it.  During  that  year  we 
stayed  quietly  in  Saint-Remy. 

We  had  intended  staying  only  a  month  or  two  but  we  stayed  all  win- 
ter. With  the  exception  of  an  occasional  interchange  of  visits  with  Janet 
Scudder  we  saw  no  one  except  the  people  of  the  country.  We  went  to 
Avignon  to  shop,  we  went  now  and  then  into  the  country  we  had  known 
so  well  but  for  the  most  part  we  wandered  around  Saint-Remy,  we  went 
up  into  the  Alpilles,  the  little  hills  that  Gertrude  Stein  described  over 
and  over  again  in  the  writing  of  that  winter,  we  watched  the  enormous 
flocks  of  sheep  going  up  into  the  mountains  led  by  the  donkeys  and  their 
water  bottles,  we  sat  above  the  roman  monuments  and  we  went  often  to 
Les  Baux.  The  hotel  was  not  very  comfortable  but  we  stayed  on.  The 
valley  of  the  Rhone  was  once  more  exercising  its  spell  over  us. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  173 

It  was  during  this  winter  that  Gertrude  Stein  meditated  upon  the  use 
of  grammar,  poetical  forms  and  what  might  be  termed  landscape  plays. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  she  wrote  Elucidation,  printed  in  transition  in 
nineteen  twenty-seven.  It  was  her  first  effort  to  state  her  problems  of  ex- 
pression and  her  attempts  to  answer  them.  It  was  her  first  effort  to  realise 
clearly  just  what  her  writing  meant  and  why  it  was  at  it  was.  Later  on 
much  later  she  wrote  her  treatises  on  grammar,  sentences,  paragraphs, 
vocabulary  etcetera,  which  I  have  printed  in  Plain  Edition  under  the 
title  of  How  To  Write. 

It  was  in  Saint-Remy  and  during  this  winter  that  she  wrote  the  poetry 
that  has  so  greatly  influenced  the  younger  generation.  Her  Capital 
Capitals,  Virgil  Thomson  has  put  to  music.  Lend  a  Hand  or  Four  Re- 
ligions has  been  printed  in  Useful  Knowledge.  This  play  has  always 
interested  her  immensely,  it  was  the  first  attempt  that  later  made  her 
Operas  and  Plays,  the  first  conception  of  landscape  as  a  play.  She  also 
at  that  time  wrote  the  Valentine  to  Sherwood  Anderson,  also  printed  in 
the  volume  Useful  Knowledge,  Indian  Boy,  printed  later  in  the  Re- 
viewer, (Carl  Van  Vechten  sent  Hunter  Stagg  to  us  a  young  Southerner 
as  attractive  as  his  name),  and  Saints  In  Seven,  which  she  used  to  illus- 
trate her  work  in  her  lectures  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  Talks  to 
Saints  in  Saint-Remy. 

She  worked  in  those  days  with  slow  care  and  concentration,  and  was 
very  preoccupied. 

Finally  we  received  the  first  copies  of  Geography  and  Plays,  the  win- 
ter was  over  and  we  went  back  to  Paris. 

This  long  winter  in  Saint-Remy  broke  the  restlessness  of  the  war  and 
the  after  war.  A  great  many  things  were  to  happen,  there  were  to  be 
friendships  and  there  were  to  be  enmities  and  there  were  to  be  a  great 
many  other  things  but  there  was  not  to  be  any  restlessness. 

Gertrude  Stein  always  says  that  she  only  has  two  real  distractions, 
pictures  and  automobiles.  Perhaps  she  might  now  add  dogs. 

Immediately  after  the  war  her  attention  was  attracted  by  the  work 
of  a  young  french  painter,  Fabre,  who  had  a  natural  feeling  for  objects 
on  a  table  and  landscapes  but  he  came  to  nothing.  The  next  painter  who 
attracted  her  attention  was  Andre  Masson.  Masson  was  at  that  time  in- 
fluenced by  Juan  Gris  in  whom  Gertrude  Stein's  interest  was  permanent 
and  vital.  She  was  interested  in  Andre  Masson  as  a  painter  particularly 
as  a  painter  of  white  and  she  was  interested  in  his  composition  in  the 


174  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

wandering  line  in  his  compositions.  Soon  Masson  fell  under  the  influ- 
ence of  the  surrealistes. 

The  surrealistes  are  the  vulgarisation  of  Picabia  as  Delaunay  and  his 
followers  and  the  futurists  were  the  vulgarisation  of  Picasso.  Picabia  had 
conceived  and  is  struggling  with  the  problem  that  a  line  should  have 
the  vibration  of  a  musical  sound  and  that  this  vibration  should  be  the 
result  of  conceiving  the  human  form  and  the  human  face  in  so  tenuous 
a  fashion  that  it  would  induce  such  vibration  in  the  line  forming  it.  It 
is  his  way  of  achieving  the  disembodied.  It  was  this  idea  that  conceived 
mathematically  influenced  Marcel  Duchamp  and  produced  his  The 
Nude  Descending  the  Staircase. 

All  his  life  Picabia  has  struggled  to  dominate  and  achieve  this  con- 
ception.  Gertrude  Stein  thinks  that  perhaps  he  is  now  approaching  the 
solution  of  his  problem.  The  surrealistes  taking  the  manner  for  the 
matter  as  is  the  way  of  the  vulgarisers,  accept  the  line  as  having  become 
vibrant  and  as  therefore  able  in  itself  to  inspire  them  to  higher  flights. 
He  who  is  going  to  be  the  creator  of  the  vibrant  line  knows  that  it  is  not 
yet  created  and  if  it  were  it  would  not  exist  by  itself,  it  would  be  de- 
pendent upon  the  emotion  of  the  object  which  compels  the  vibration. 
So  much  for  the  creator  and  his  followers. 

Gertrude  Stein,  in  her  work,  has  always  been  possessed  by  the  intel- 
lectual passion  for  exactitude  in  the  description  of  inner  and  outer 
reality.  She  has  produced  a  simplification  by  this  concentration,  and  as 
a  result  the  destruction  of  associational  emotion  in  poetry  and  prose.  She 
knows  that  beauty,  music,  decoration,  the  result  of  emotion  should  never 
be  the  cause,  even  events  should  not  be  the  cause  of  emotion  nor  should 
they  be  the  material  of  poetry  and  prose.  Nor  should  emotion  itself  be 
the  cause  of  poetry  or  prose.  They  should  consist  of  an  exact  reproduc- 
tion of  either  an  outer  or  an  inner  reality. 

It  was  this  conception  of  exactitude  that  made  the  close  understand- 
ing between  Gertrude  Stein  and  Juan  Gris. 

Juan  Gris  also  conceived  exactitude  but  in  him  exactitude  had  a  mys- 
tical basis.  As  a  mystic  it  was  necessary  for  him  to  be  exact.  In  Gertrude 
Stein  the  necessity  was  intellectual,  a  pure  passion  for  exactitude.  It  is  be- 
cause of  this  that  her  work  has  often  been  compared  to  that  of  mathe- 
maticians and  by  a  certain  french  critic  to  the  work  of  Bach. 

Picasso  by  nature  the  most  endowed  had  less  clarity  of  intellectual 
purpose.  He  was  in  his  creative  activity  dominated  by  Spanish  ritual, 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  175 

later  by  negro  ritual  expressed  in  negro  sculpture  (which  has  an  arab 
basis  the  basis  also  of  Spanish  ritual)  and  later  by  russian  ritual.  His 
creative  activity  being  tremendously  dominant,  he  made  these  great 
rituals  over  into  his  own  image. 

Juan  Gris  was  the  only  person  whom  Picasso  wished  away.  The  rela- 
tion between  them  was  just  that. 

In  the  days  when  the  friendship  between  Gertrude  Stein  and  Picasso 
had  become  if  possible  closer  than  before,  (it  was  for  his  little  boy,  born 
February  fourth  to  her  February  third,  that  she  wrote  her  birthday  book 
with  a  line  for  each  day  in  the  year)  in  those  days  her  intimacy  with 
Juan  Gris  displeased  him.  Once  after  a  show  of  Juan's  pictures  at  the 
Gallerie  Simon  he  said  to  her  with  violence,  tell  me  why  you  stand  up 
for  his  work,  you  know  you  do  not  like  it;  and  she  did  not  answer  him. 

Later  when  Juan  died  and  Gertrude  Stein  was  heart  broken  Picasso 
came  to  the  house  and  spent  all  day  there.  I  do  not  know  what  was  said 
but  I  do  know  that  at  one  time  Gertrude  Stein  said  to  him  bitterly,  you 
have  no  right  to  mourn,  and  he  said,  you  have  no  right  to  say  that  to 
me.  You  never  realised  his  meaning  because  you  did  not  have  it,  she  said 
angrily.  You  know  very  well  I  did,  he  replied. 

The  most  moving  thing  Gertrude  Stein  has  ever  written  is  The  Life 
and  Death  of  Juan  Gris.  It  was  printed  in  transition  and  later  on  trans- 
lated in  german  for  his  retrospective  show  in  Berlin. 

Picasso  never  wished  Braque  away.  Picasso  said  once  when  he  and 
Gertrude  Stein  were  talking  together,  yes,  Braque  and  James  Joyce,  they 
are  the  incomprehensibles  whom  anybody  can  understand.  Les  incom- 
prehensibles  que  tout  le  monde  peut  comprendre. 

The  first  thing  that  happened  when  we  were  back  in  Paris  was  Hem- 
ingway with  a  letter  of  introduction  from  Sherwood  Anderson. 

I  remember  very  well  the  impression  I  had  of  Hemingway  that  first 
afternoon.  He  was  an  extraordinarily  good-looking  young  man,  twenty- 
three  years  old.  It  was  not  long  after  that  that  everybody  was  twenty- 
six.  It  became  the  period  of  being  twenty-six.  During  the  next  two  or 
three  years  all  the  young  men  were  twenty-six  years  old.  It  was  the  right 
age  apparently  for  that  time  and  place.  There  were  one  or  two  under 
twenty,  for  example  George  Lynes  but  they  did  not  count  as  Gertrude 
Stein  carefully  explained  to  them.  If  they  were  young  men  they  were 
twenty-six.  Later  on,  much  later  on  they  were  twenty-one  and  twenty- 
two. 


176  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

So  Hemingway  was  twenty-three,  rather  foreign  looking,  with  pas- 
sionately interested,  rather  than  interesting  eyes.  He  sat  in  front  of  Ger- 
trude Stein  and  listened  and  looked. 

They  talked  then,  and  more  and  more,  a  great  deal  together.  He  asked 
her  to  come  and  spend  an  evening  in  their  apartment  and  look  at  his 
work.  Hemingway  had  then  and  has  always  a  very  good  instinct  for 
finding  apartments  in  strange  but  pleasing  localities  and  good  femmes 
de  menage  and  good  food.  This  his  first  apartment  was  just  off  the  place 
du  Tertre.  We  spent  the  evening  there  and  he  and  Gertrude  Stein  went 
over  all  the  writing  he  had  done  up  to  that  time.  He  had  begun  the  novel 
that  it  was  inevitable  he  would  begin  and  there  were  the  little  poems 
afterwards  printed  by  McAlmon  in  the  Contract  Edition.  Gertrude 
Stein  rather  liked  the  poems,  they  were  direct,  Kiplingesque,  but  the 
novel  she  found  wanting.  There  is  a  great  deal  of  description  in  this,  she 
said,  and  not  particularly  good  description.  Begin  over  again  and  con- 
centrate, she  said. 

Hemingway  was  at  this  time  Paris  correspondent  for  a  Canadian  news- 
paper. He  was  obliged  there  to  express  what  he  called  the  Canadian  view- 
point. 

He  and  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  walk  together  and  talk  together  a 
great  deal.  One  day  she  said  to  him,  look  here,  you  say  you  and  your 
wife  have  a  little  money  between  you.  Is  it  enough  to  live  on  if  you  live 
quietly.  Yes,  he  said.  Well,  she  said,  then  do  it.  If  you  keep  on  doing 
newspaper  work  you  will  never  see  things,  you  will  only  see  words  and 
that  will  not  do,  that  is  of  course  if  you  intend  to  be  a  writer.  Heming- 
way said  he  undoubtedly  intended  to  be  a  writer.  He  and  his  wife  went 
away  on  a  trip  and  shortly  after  Hemingway  turned  up  alone.  He  came 
to  the  house  about  ten  o'clock  in  the  morning  and  he  stayed,  he  stayed  for 
lunch,  he  stayed  all  afternoon,  he  stayed  for  dinner  and  he  stayed  until 
about  ten  o'clock  at  night  and  then  all  of  a  sudden  he  announced  that 
his  wife  was  enceinte  and  then  with  great  bitterness,  and  I,  I  am  too 
young  to  be  a  father.  We  consoled  him  as  best  we  could  and  sent  him  on 
his  way. 

When  they  came  back  Hemingway  said  that  he  had  made  up  his 
mind.  They  would  go  back  to  America  and  he  would  work  hard  for  a 
year  and  with  what  he  would  earn  and  what  they  had  they  would  settle 
down  and  he  would  give  up  newspaper  work  and  make  himself  a  writer. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  177 

They  went  away  and  well  within  the  prescribed  year  they  came  back 
with  a  new  born  baby.  Newspaper  work  was  over. 

The  first  thing  to  do  when  they  came  back  was  as  they  thought  to  get 
the  baby  baptised.  They  wanted  Gertrude  Stein  and  myself  to  be  god- 
mothers and  an  english  war  comrade  of  Hemingway  was  to  be  god- 
father. We  were  all  born  of  different  religions  and  most  of  us  were 
not  practising  any,  so  it  was  rather  difficult  to  know  in  what  church  the 
baby  could  be  baptised.  We  spent  a  great  deal  of  time  that  winter,  all  of 
of  us,  discussing  the  matter.  Finally  it  was  decided  that  it  should  be 
baptised  episcopalian  and  episcopalian  it  was.  Just  how  it  was  managed 
with  the  assortment  of  god-parents  I  am  sure  I  do  not  know,  but  it  was 
baptised  in  the  episcopalian  chapel. 

Writer  or  painter  god-parents  are  notoriously  unreliable.  That  is, 
there  is  certain  before  long  to  be  a  cooling  of  friendship.  \  know  several 
cases  of  this,  poor  Paulot  Picasso's  god-parents  have  wandered  out  of 
sight  and  just  as  naturally  it  is  a  long  time  since  any  of  us  have  seen  or 
heard  of  our  Hemingway  god-child. 

However  in  the  beginning  we  were  active  god-parents,  I  particularly. 
I  embroidered  a  little  chair  and  I  knitted  a  gay  coloured  garment  for  the 
god-child.  In  the  meantime  the  god-child's  father  was  very  earnestly  at 
work  making  himself  a  writer. 

Gertrude  Stein  never  corrects  any  detail  of  anybody's  writing,  she 
sticks  strictly  to  general  principles,  the  way  of  seeing  what  the  writer 
chooses  to  see,  and  the  relation  between  that  vision  and  the  way  it  gets 
down.  When  the  vision  is  not  complete  the  words  are  flat,  it  is  very 
simple,  there  can  be  no  mistake  about  it,  so  she  insists.  It  was  at  this  time 
that  Hemingway  began  the  short  things  that  afterwards  were  printed 
in  a  volume  called  In  Our  Time. 

One  day  Hemingway  came  in  very  excited  about  Ford  Madox  Ford 
and  the  Transatlantic.  Ford  Madox  Ford  had  started  the  Transatlantic 
some  months  before.  A  good  many  years  before,  indeed  before  the  war, 
we  had  met  Ford  Madox  Ford  who  was  at  that  time  Ford  Madox 
Hueffer.  He  was  married  to  Violet  Hunt  and  Violet  Hunt  and  Gertrude 
Stein  were  next  to  each  other  at  the  tea  table  and  talked  a  great  deal 
together.  I  was  next  to  Ford  Madox  HuefTer  and  I  liked  him  very  much 
and  I  liked  his  stories  of  Mistral  and  Tarascon  and  I  liked  his  having 
been  followed  about  in  that  land  of  the  french  royalist,  on  account  of 


178  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

his  resemblance  to  the  Bourbon  claimant.  I  had  never  seen  the  Bourbon 
claimant  but  Ford  at  that  time  undoubtedly  might  have  been  a  Bourbon. 

We  had  heard  that  Ford  was  in  Paris,  but  we  had  not  happened  to 
meet.  Gertrude  Stein  had  however  seen  copies  of  the  Transatlantic  and 
found  it  interesting  but  had  thought  nothing  further  about  it. 

Hemingway  came  in  then  very  excited  and  said  that  Ford  wanted 
something  of  Gertrude  Stein's  for  the  next  number  and  he,  Hemingway, 
wanted  The  Making  of  Americans  to  be  run  in  it  as  a  serial  and  he  had 
to  have  the  first  fifty  pages  at  once.  Gertrude  Stein  was  of  course  quite 
overcome  with  her  excitement  at  this  idea,  but  there  was  no  copy  of  the 
manuscript  except  the  one  that  we  had  had  bound.  That  makes  no  dif- 
ference, said  Hemingway,  I  will  copy  it.  And  he  and  I  between  us  did 
copy  it  and  it  was  printed  in  the  next  number  of  the  Transatlantic.  So 
for  the  first  time  a  piece  of  the  monumental  work  which  was  the  begin- 
ning, really  the  beginning  of  modern  writing,  was  printed,  and  we  were 
very  happy.  Later  on  when  things  were  difficult  between  Gertrude  Stein 
and  Hemingway,  she  always  remembered  with  gratitude  that  after  all 
it  was  Hemingway  who  first  caused  to  be  printed  a  piece  of  The  Mak- 
ing of  Americans.  She  always  says,  yes  sure  I  have  a  weakness  for 
Hemingway.  After  all  he  was  the  first  of  the  young  men  to  knock  at 
my  door  and  he  did  make  Ford  print  the  first  piece  of  The  Making  of 
Americans. 

I  myself  have  not  so  much  confidence  that  Hemingway  did  do  this. 
I  have  never  known  what  the  story  is  but  I  have  always  been  certain 
that  there  was  some  other  story  behind  it  all.  That  is  the  way  I  feel 
about  it. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  Sherwood  Anderson  are  very  funny  on  the  sub- 
ject of  Hemingway.  The  last  time  that  Sherwood  was  in  Paris  they  often 
talked  about  him.  Hemingway  had  been  formed  by  the  two  of  them  and 
they  were  both  a  little  proud  and  a  little  ashamed  of  the  work  of  their 
minds.  Hemingway  had  at  one  moment,  when  he  had  repudiated 
Sherwood  Anderson  and  all  his  works,  written  him  a  letter  in  the  name 
of  american  literature  which  he,  Hemingway,  in  company  with  his  con- 
temporaries was  about  to  save,  telling  Sherwood  just  what  he,  Heming- 
way thought  about  Sherwood's  work,  and,  that  thinking,  was  in  no  sense 
complimentary.  When  Sherwood  came  to  Paris  Hemingway  naturally 
was  afraid.  Sherwood  as  naturally  was  not. 

As  I  say  he  and  Gertrude  Stein  were  endlessly  amusing  on  the  sub- 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  179 

ject.  They  admitted  that  Hemingway  was  yellow,  he  is,  Gertrude  Stein 
insisted,  just  like  the  flat-boat  men  on  the  Mississippi  river  as  described 
by  Mark  Twain.  But  what  a  book,  they  both  agreed,  would  be  the  real 
story  of  Hemingway,  not  those  he  writes  but  the  confessions  of  the  real 
Ernest  Hemingway.  It  would  be  for  another  audience  than  the  audience 
Hemingway  now  has  but  it  would  be  very  wonderful.  And  then  they 
both  agreed  that  they  have  a  weakness  for  Hemingway  because  he  is 
such  a  good  pupil.  He  is  a  rotten  pupil,  I  protested.  You  don't  under- 
stand, they  both  said,  it  is  so  flattering  to  have  a  pupil  who  does  it  with- 
out understanding  it,  in  other  words  he  takes  training  and  anybody  who 
takes  training  is  a  favourite  pupil.  They  both  admit  it  to  be  a  weakness. 
Gertrude  Stein  added  further,  you  see  he  is  like  Derain.  You  remember 
Monsieur  de  Tuille  said,  when  I  did  not  understand  why  Derain  was 
having  the  success  he  was  having  that  it  was  because  he  looks  like  a 
modern  and  he  smells  of  the  museums.  And  that  is  Hemingway,  he 
looks  like  a  modern  and  he  smells  of  the  museums.  But  what  a  story 
that  of  the  real  Hem,  and  one  he  should  tell  himself  but  alas  he  never 
will.  After  all,  as  he  himself  once  murmured,  there  is  the  career,  the 
career. 

But  to  come  back  to  the  events  that  were  happening. 

Hemingway  did  it  all.  He  copied  the  manuscript  and  corrected  the 
proof.  Correcting  proofs  is,  as  I  said  before,  like  dusting,  you  learn  the 
values  of  the  thing  as  no  reading  suffices  to  teach  it  to  you.  In  correcting 
these  proofs  Hemingway  learned  a  great  deal  and  he  admired  all  that 
he  learned.  It  was  at  this  time  that  he  wrote  to  Gertrude  Stein  saying 
that  it  was  she  who  had  done  the  work  in  writing  The  Making  of  Amer- 
icans and  he  and  all  his  had  but  to  devote  their  lives  to  seeing  that  it  was 
published. 

He  had  hopes  of  being  able  to  accomplish  this.  Some  one,  I  think  by 
the  name  of  Sterne,  said  that  he  could  place  it  with  a  publisher.  Ger- 
trude Stein  and  Hemingway  believed  that  he  could,  but  soon  Heming- 
way reported  that  Sterne  had  entered  into  his  period  of  unreliability. 
That  was  the  end  of  that. 

In  the  meantime  and  sometime  before  this  Mina  Loy  had  brought  Mc- 
Almon  to  the  house  and  he  came  from  time  to  time  and  he  brought  his 
wife  and  brought  William  Carlos  Williams.  And  finally  he  wanted  to 
print  The  Making  of  Americans  in  the  Contact  Edition  and  finally  he 
did.  I  will  come  to  that. 


180  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

In  the  meantime  McAlmon  had  printed  the  three  poems  and  ten 
stories  of  Hemingway  and  William  Bird  had  printed  In  Our  Time  and 
Hemingway  was  getting  to  be  known.  He  was  coming  to  know  Dos 
Passos  and  Fitzgerald  and  Bromfield  and  George  Antheil  and  every- 
body else  and  Harold  Loeb  was  once  more  in  Paris.  Hemingway  had 
become  a  writer.  He  was  also  a  shadow-boxer,  thanks  to  Sherwood,  and 
he  heard  about  bull-fighting  from  me.  I  have  always  loved  Spanish  danc- 
ing and  Spanish  bull-fighting  and  I  loved  to  show  the  photographs  of 
bull-fighters  and  bull-fighting.  I  also  loved  to  show  the  photograph 
where  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  were  in  the  front  row  and  had  our  picture 
taken  there  accidentally.  In  these  days  Hemingway  was  teaching  some 
young  chap  how  to  box.  The  boy  did  not  know  how,  but  by  accident  he 
knocked  Hemingway  out.  I  believe  this  sometimes  happens.  At  any  rate 
in  these  days  Hemingway  althought  a  sportsman  was  easily  tired.  He 
used  to  get  quite  worn  out  walking  from  his  house  to  ours.  But  then  he 
had  been  worn  by  the  war.  Even  now  he  is,  as  Helene  says  all  men 
are,  fragile.  Recently  a  robust  friend  of  his  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  Ernest 
is  very  fragile,  whenever  he  does  anything  sporting  something  breaks, 
his  arm,  his  leg,  or  his  head. 

Jn  those  early  days  Hemingway  liked  all  his  contemporaries  except 
Cummings.  He  accused  Cummings  of  having  copied  everything,  not 
from  anybody  but  from  somebody.  Gertrude  Stein  who  had  been  much 
impressed  by  The  Enormous  Room  said  that  Cummings  did  not  copy, 
he  was  the  natural  heir  of  the  New  England  tradition  with  its  aridity 
and  its  sterility,  but  also  with  its  individuality.  They  disagreed  about 
this.  They  also  disagreed  about  Sherwood  Anderson.  Gertrude  Stein 
contended  that  Sherwood  Anderson  had  a  genius  for  using  a  sentence 
to  convey  a  direct  emotion,  this  was  in  the  great  american  tradition, 
and  that  really  except  Sherwood  there  was  no  one  in  America  who 
could  write  a  clear  and  passionate  sentence.  Hemingway  did  not  believe 
this,  he  did  not  like  Sherwood's  taste.  Taste  has  nothing  to  do  with  sen- 
tences, contended  Gertrude  Stein.  She  also  added  that  Fitzgerald  was 
the  only  one  of  the  younger  writers  who  wrote  naturally  in  sentences. 

Gertrude  Stein  and  Fitzgerald  are  very  peculiar  in  their  relation  to 
each  other.  Gertrude  Stein  had  been  very  much  impressed  by  This  Side 
of  Paradise.  She  read  it  when  it  came  out  and  before  she  knew  any  of 
the  young  american  writers.  She  said  of  it  that  it  was  this  book  that 
really  created  for  the  public  the  new  generation.  She  has  never  changed 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  181 

her  opinion  about  this.  She  thinks  this  equally  true  of  The  Great  Gatsby. 
She  thinks  Fitzgerald  will  be  read  when  many  of  his  well  known  con- 
temporaries are  forgotten.  Fitzgerald  always  says  that  he  thinks  Ger- 
trude Stein  says  these  things  just  to  annoy  him  by  making  him  think 
that  she  means  them,  and  he  adds  in  his  favourite  way,  and  her  doing 
it  is  the  cruellest  thing  I  ever  heard.  They  always  however  have  a  very 
good  time  when  they  meet.  And  the  last  time  they  met  they  had  a  good 
time  with  themselves  and  Hemingway. 

Then  there  was  McAlmon.  McAlmon  had  one  quality  that  appealed 
to  Gertrude  Stein,  abundance,  he  could  go  on  writing,  but  she  com- 
plained that  it  was  dull. 

There  was  also  Glenway  Wescott  but  Glenway  Wescott  at  no  time 
interested  Gertrude  Stein.  He  has  a  certain  syrup  but  it  does  not  pour. 

So  then  Hemingway's  career  was  begun.  For  a  little  while  we  saw 
less  of  him  and  then  he  began  to  come  again.  He  used  to  recount  to  Ger- 
trude Stein  the  conversations  that  he  afterwards  used  in  The  Sun  Also 
Rises  and  they  talked  endlessly  about  the  character  of  Harold  Loeb.  At 
this  time  Hemingway  was  preparing  his  volume  of  short  stories  to  sub- 
mit to  publishers  in  America.  One  evening  after  we  had  not  seen  him 
for  a  while  he  turned  up  with  Shipman.  Shipman  was  an  amusing  boy 
who  was  to  inherit  a  few  thousand  dollars  when  he  came  of  age.  He 
was  not  of  age.  He  was  to  buy  the  Transatlantic  Review  when  he  came 
of  age,  so  Hemingway  said.  He  was  to  support  a  surrealist  review  when 
he  came  of  age,  Andre  Masson  said.  He  was  to  buy  a  house  in  the  coun- 
try when  he  came  of  age,  Josette  Gris  said.  As  a  matter  of  fact  when  he 
came  of  age  nobody  who  had  known  him  then  seemed  to  know  what  he 
did  do  with  his  inheritance.  Hemingway  brought  him  with  him  to  the 
house  to  talk  about  buying  the  Transatlantic  and  incidentally  he  brought 
the  manuscript  he  intended  sending  to  America.  He  handed  it  to  Ger- 
trude Stein.  He  had  added  to  his  stories  a  little  story  of  meditations  and 
in  these  he  said  that  The  Enormous  Room  was  the  greatest  book  he 
had  ever  read.  It  was  then  that  Gertrude  Stein  said,  Hemingway,  re- 
marks are  not  literature. 

After  this  we  did  not  see  Hemingway  for  quite  a  while  and  then  we 
went  to  see  some  one,  just  after  The  Making  of  Americans  was  printed, 
and  Hemingway  who  was  there  came  up  to  Gertrude  Stein  and  began 
to  explain  why  he  would  not  be  able  to  write  a  review  of  the  book.  Just 
then  a  heavy  hand  fell  on  his  shoulder  and  Ford  Madox  Ford  said, 


182  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

young  man  it 'is  I  who  wish  to  speak  to  Gertrude  Stein.  Ford  then  said 
to  her,  I  wish  to  ask  your  permission  to  dedicate  my  new  book  to  you. 
May  I.  Gertrude  Stein  and  I  were  both  awfully  pleased  and  touched. 

For  some  years  after  this  Gertrude  Stein  and  Hemingway  did  not 
meet.  And  then  we  heard  that  he  was  back  in  Paris  and  telling  a  num- 
ber of  people  how  much  he  wanted  to  see  her.  Don't  you  come  home 
with  Hemingway  on  your  arm,  I  used  to  say  when  she  went  out  for  a 
walk.  Sure  enough  one  day  she  did  come  back  bringing  him  with  her. 

They  sat  and  talked  a  long  time.  Finally  I  heard  her  say,  Hemingway, 
after  all  you  are  ninety  percent  Rotarian.  Can't  you,  he  said,  make  it 
eighty  percent.  No,  said  she  regretfully,  I  can't.  After  all,  as  she  always 
says,  he  did,  and  I  may  say,  he  does  have  moments  of  disinterestedness. 

After  that  they  met  quite  often.  Gertrude  Stein  always  says  she  likes 
to  see  him,  he  is  so  wonderful.  And  if  he  could  only  tell  his  own  story. 
In  their  last  conversation  she  accused  him  of  having  killed  a  great  many 
of  his  rivals  and  put  them  under  the  sod.  I  never,  said  Hemingway, 
seriously  killed  anybody  but  one  man  and  he  was  a  bad  man  and,  he 
deserved  it,  but  if  I  killed  anybody  else  I  did  it  unknowingly,  and  so  I 
am  not  responsible. 

It  was  Ford  who  once  said  of  Hemingway,  he  comes  and  sits  at  my 
feet  and  praises  me.  It  makes  me  nervous.  Hemingway  also  said  once, 
I  turn  my  flame  which  is  a  small  one  down  and  down  and  then  suddenly 
there  is  a  big  explosion.  If  there  were  nothing  but  explosions  my  work 
would  be  so  exciting  nobody  could  bear  it. 

However,  whatever  I  say,  Gertrude  Stein  always  says,  yes  I  know  but 
I  have  a  weakness  for  Hemingway. 

Jane  Heap  turned  up  one  afternoon.  The  Little  Review  had  printed 
the  Birthplace  of  Bonnes  and  The  Valentine  to  Sherwood  Anderson. 
Jane  Heap  sat  down  and  we  began  to  talk.  She  stayed  to  dinner  and 
she  stayed  the  evening  and  by  dawn  the  little  ford  car  Godiva  which 
had  been  burning  its  lights  all  night  waiting  to  be  taken  home  could 
hardly  start  to  take  Jane  home.  Gertrude  Stein  then  and  always  liked 
Jane  Heap  immensely,  Margaret  Anderson  interested  her  much  less. 

It  was  now  once  more  summer  and  this  time  we  went  to  the  Cote 
d'Azur  and  joined  the  Picassos  at  Antibes.  It  was  there  I  first  saw  Pi- 
casso's mother.  Picasso  looks  extraordinarily  like  her.  Gertrude  Stein 
and  Madame  Picasso  had  difficulty  in  talking  not  having  a  common 
language  but  they  talked  enough  to  amuse  themselves.  They  were  talk- 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  183 

ing  about  Picasso  when  Gertrude  Stein  first  knew  him.  He  was  remark- 
ably beautiful  then,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  he  was  illuminated  as  if  he 
wore  a  halo.  Oh,  said  Madame  Picasso,  if  you  thought  him  beautiful 
then  I  assure  you  it  was  nothing  compared  to  his  looks  when  he  was  a 
boy.  He  was  an  angel  and  a  devil  in  beauty,  no  one  could  cease  looking 
at  him.  And  now,  said  Picasso  a  little  resentfully.  Ah  now,  said  they 
together,  ah  now  there  is  no  such  beauty  left.  But,  added  his  mother, 
you  are  very  sweet  and  as  a  son  very  perfect.  So  he  had  to  be  satisfied 
with  that. 

It  was  at  this  time  that  Jean  Cocteau  who  prides  himself  on  being 
eternally  thirty  was  writing  a  little  biography  of  Picasso,  and  he  sent 
him  a  telegram  asking  him  to  tell  him  the  date  of  his  birth.  And  yours, 
telegraphed  back  Picasso. 

There  are  so  many  stories  about  Picasso  and  Jean  Cocteau.  Picasso  like 
Gertrude  Stein  is  easily  upset  if  asked  to  do  something  suddenly  and 
Jean  Cocteau  does  this  quite  successfully.  Picasso  resents  it  and  revenges 
himself  at  greater  length.  Not  long  ago  there  was  a  long  story. 

Picasso  was  in  Spain,  in  Barcelona,  and  a  friend  of  his  youth  who  was 
editor  of  a  paper  printed,  not  in  Spanish  but  in  Catalan,  interviewed  him. 
Picasso  knowing  that  the  interview  to  be  printed  in  Catalan  was  prob- 
ably never  going  to  be  printed  in  Spanish,  thoroughly  enjoyed  himself. 
He  said  that  Jean  Cocteau  was  getting  to  be  very  popular  in  Paris,  so 
popular  that  you  could  find  his  poems  on  the  table  of  any  smart  coiffeur. 

As  I  say  he  thoroughly  enjoyed  himself  in  giving  this  interview  and 
then  returned  to  Paris. 

Some  Catalan  in  Barcelona  sent  the  paper  to  some  Catalan  friend  in 
Paris  and  the  Catalan  friend  in  Paris  translated  it  to  a  french  friend 
and  the  french  friend  printed  the  interview  in  a  french  paper. 

Picasso  and  his  wife  told  us  the  story  together  of  what  happened  then. 
As  soon  as  Jean  saw  the  article,  he  tried  to  see  Pablo.  Pablo  refused  to 
see  him,  he  told  the  maid  to  say  that  he  was  always  out  and  for  days 
they  could  not  answer  the  telephone.  Cocteau  finally  stated  in  an  inter- 
view given  to  the  french  press  that  the  interview  which  had  wounded 
him  so  sorely  had  turned  out  to  be  an  interview  with  Picabia  and  not 
an  interview  with  Picasso,  his  friend.  Picabia  of  course  denied  this.  Coc- 
teau implored  Picasso  to  give  a  public  denial.  Picasso  remained  discreetly 
at  home. 

The  first  evening  the  Picassos  went  out  they  went  to  the  theatre  and 


184  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

there  in  front  of  them  seated  was  Jean  Cocteau's  mother.  At  the  first 
intermission  they  went  up  to  her,  and  surrounded  by  all  their  mutual 
friends  she  said,  my  dear,  you  cannot  imagine  the  relief  to  me  and  to 
Jean  to  know  that  it  was  not  you  that  gave  out  that  vile  interview,  do 
tell  me  that  it  was  not. 

And  as  Picasso's  wife  said,  I  as  a  mother  could  not  let  a  mother  suffer 
and  I  said  of  course  it  was  not  Picasso  and  Picasso  said,  yes  yes  of  course 
it  was  not,  and  so  the  public  retraction  was  given. 

It  was  this  summer  that  Gertrude  Stein,  delighting  in  the  movement 
of  the  tiny  waves  on  the  Antibes  shore,  wrote  the  Completed  Portrait  of 
Picasso,  the  Second  Portrait  of  Carl  Van  Vechten,  and  The  Book  of  Con- 
cluding With  As  A  Wife  Has  A  Cow  A  Lo,ve  Story  this  afterwards 
beautifully  illustrated  by  Juan  Gris. 

Robert  McAlmon  had  definitely  decided  to  public  The  Making  of 
Americans,  and  we  were  to  correct  proofs  that  summer.  The  summer  be- 
fore we  had  intended  as  usual  to  meet  the  Picassos  at  Antibes.  I  had  been 
reading  the  Guide  des  Gourmets  and  I  had  found  among  other  places 
where  one  ate  well,  Pernollet's  Hotel  in  the  town  of  Belley.  Belley  is  its 
name  and  Belley  is  its  nature,  as  Gertrude  Stein's  elder  brother  re- 
marked. We  arrived  there  about  the  middle  of  August.  On  the  map  it 
looked  as  if  it  were  high  up  in  the  mountains  and  Gertrude  Stein  does 
not  like  precipices  and  as  we  drove  through  the  gorge  I  was  nervous  and 
she  protesting,  but  finally  the  country  opened  out  delightfully  and  we 
arrived  in  Belley.  It  was  a  pleasant  hotel  although  it  had  no  garden  and 
we  had  intended  that  it  should  have  a  garden.  We  stayed  on  for  several 
days. 

Then  Madame  Pernollet,  a  pleasant  round  faced  woman  said  to  us 
that  since  we  were  evidently  staying  on  why  did  we  not  make  rates  by 
the  day  or  by  the  week.  We  said  we  would.  In  the  meanwhile  the 
Picassos  wanted  to  know  what  had  become  of  us.  We  replied  that  we 
were  in  Belley.  We  found  that  Belley  was  the  birthplace  of  Brillat- 
Savarin.  We  now  in  Bilignin  are  enjoying  using  the  furniture  from  the 
house  of  Brillat-Savarin  which  house  belongs  to  the  owner  of  this  house. 

We  also  found  that  Lamartine  had  been  at  school  in  Belley  and  Ger- 
trude Stein  says  that  wherever  Lamartine  stayed  any  length  of  time  one 
eats  well.  Madame  Recamier  also  comes  from  this  region  and  the  place 
is  full  of  descendants  of  her  husband's  family.  All  these  things  we  found 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  185 

out  gradually  but  for  the  moment  we  were  comfortable  and  we  stayed 
on  and  left  late.  The  following  summer  we  were  to  correct  proofs  of 
The  Making  of  Americans  and  so  we  left  Paris  early  and  came  again 
to  Belley.  What  a  summer  it  was. 

The  Making  of  Americans  is  a  book  one  thousand  pages  long,  closely 
printed  on  large  pages.  Darantiere  has  told  me  it  has  five  hundred  and 
sixty-five  thousand  words.  It  was  written  in  nineteen  hundred  and  six 
to  nineteen  hundred  and  eight,  and  except  for  the  sections  printed  in 
Transatlantic  it  was  all  still  in  manuscript. 

The  sentences  as  the  book  goes  on  get  longer  and  longer,  they  are  some- 
times pages  long  and  the  compositors  were  french,  and  when  they  made 
mistakes  and  left  out  a  line  the  effort  of  getting  it  back  again  was  terrific. 

We  used  to  leave  the  hotel  in  the  morning  with  camp  chairs,  lunch 
and  proof,  and  all  day  we  struggled  with  the  errors  of  French  com- 
positors. Proof  had  to  be  corrected  most  of  it  four  times  and  finally  I 
broke  my  glasses,  my  eyes  gave  out,  and  Gertrude  Stein  finished  alone. 

We  used  to  change  the  scene  of  our  labours  and  we  found  lovely  spots 
but  there  were  always  to  accompany  us  those  endless  pages  of  printers' 
errors.  One  of  our  favourite  hillocks  where  we  could  see  Mont  Blanc  in 
the  distance  we  called  Madame  Mont  Blanc. 

Another  place  we  went  to  often  was  near  a  little  pool  made  by  a  small 
stream  near  a  country  cross-road.  This  was  quite  like  the  middle  ages, 
so  many  things  used  to  happen  there,  in  a  very  simple  middle  age  way. 
I  remember  once  a  country-man  came  up  to  us  leading  his  oxen.  Very 
politely  he  said,  ladies  is  there  anything  the  matter  with  me.  Why  yes, 
we  replied,  your  face  is  covered  with  blood.  Oh,  he  said,  you  see  my 
oxen  were  slipping  down  the  hill  and  I  held  them  back  and  I  too  slipped 
and  I  wondered  if  anything  had  happened  to  me.  We  helped  him  wash 
the  blood  off  and  he  went  on. 

It  was  during  this  summer  that  Gertrude  Stein  began  two  long  things, 
A  Novel  and  the  Phenomena  of  Nature  which  was  to  lead  later  to  the 
whole  series  of  meditations  on  grammar  and  sentences. 

It  led  first  to  An  Acquaintance  With  Description,  afterwards  printed 
by  the  Seizin  Press.  She  began  at  this  time  to  describe  landscape  as  if 
anything  she  saw  was  a  natural  phenomenon,  a  thing  existent  in  itself, 
and  she  found  it,  this  exercise,  very  interesting  and  it  finally  led  her  to 
the  later  series  of  Operas  and  Plays.  I  am  trying  to  be  as  commonplace  as 


186  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

I  can  be,  she  used  to  say  to  me.  And  then  sometimes  a  little  worried,  it 
is  not  too  commonplace.  The  last  thing  that  she  had  finished,  Stanzas 
of  Meditation,  and  which  I  am  now  typewriting,  she  considers  her  real 
achievement  of  the  commonplace. 

But  to  go  back.  We  returned  to  Paris,  the  proofs  almost  done,  and 
Jane  Heap  was  there.  She  was  very  excited.  She  had  a  wonderful  plan, 
I  have  now  quite  forgotten  what  it  was,  but  Gertrude  Stein  was  enor- 
mously pleased  with  it.  It  had  something  to  do  with  a  plan  for  another 
edition  of  The  Making  of  Americans  in  America. 

At  any  rate  in  the  various  complications  connected  with  this  matter 
McAlmon  became  very  angry  and  not  without  reason,  and  The  Mak- 
ing of  Americans  appeared  but  McAlmon  and  Gertrude  Stein  were  no 
longer  friends. 

When  Gertrude  Stein  was  quite  young  her  brother  once  remarked 
to  her,  that  she,  having  been  born  in  February,  was  very  like  George 
Washington,  she  was  impulsive  and  slow-minded.  Undoubtedly  a  great 
many  complications  have  been  the  result. 

One  day  in  this  same  spring  we  were  going  to  visit  a  new  spring  salon. 
Jane  Heap  had  been  telling  us  of  a  young  russian  in  whose  work  she 
was  interested.  As  we  were  crossing  a  bridge  in  Godiva  we  saw  Jane 
Heap  and  the  young  russian.  We  saw  his  pictures  and  Gertrude  Stein 
too  was  interested.  He  of  course  came  to  see  us. 

In  How  To  Write  Gertrude  Stein  makes  this  sentence,  Painting  now 
after  its  great  period  has  come  back  to  be  a  minor  art. 

She  was  very  interested  to  know  who  was  to  be  the  leader  of  this  art. 

This  is  the  story. 

The  young  russian  was  interesting.  He  was  painting,  so  he  said, 
colour  that  was  no  colour,  he  was  painting  blue  pictures  and  he  was 
painting  three  heads  in  one.  Picasso  had  been  drawing  three  heads  in 
one.  Soon  the  russian  was  painting  three  figures  in  one.  Was  he  the  only 
one.  In  a  way  he  was  although  there  was  a  group  of  them.  This  group, 
very  shortly  after  Gertrude  Stein  knew  the  russian,  had  a  show  at  one 
of  the  art  galleries,  Druet's  I  think.  The  group  then  consisted  of  the 
russian,  a  frenchman,  a  very  young  dutchman,  and  two  russian  brothers. 
All  of  them  except  the  dutchman  about  twenty-six  years  old. 

At  this  show  Gertrude  Stein  met  George  Antheil  who  asked  to  come 
to  see  her  and  when  he  came  he  brought  with  him  Virgil  Thomson. 
Gertrude  Stein  had  not  found  George  Antheil  particularly  interesting 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  187 

although  she  liked  him,  but  Virgil  Thomson  she  found  very  interesting 
although  I  did  riot  like  him. 

However  all  this  I  will  tell  about  later.  To  go  back  now  to  painting. 

The  russian  Tchelitchev's  work  was  the  most  vigorous  of  the  group 
and  the  most  mature  and  the  most  interesting.  He  had  already  then 
a  passionate  enmity  m  against  the  frenchman  whom  they  called  Bebe 
Berard  and  whose  name  was  Christian  Berard  and  whom  Tchefttchev 
said  copied  everything. 

Rene  Crevel  had  been  the  friend  of  all  these  painters.  Some  time  later 
one  of  them  was  to  have  a  one  man  show  at  the  Gallerie  Pierre.  We  were 
going  to  it  and  on  the  way  we  met  Rene.  We  all  stopped,  he  was  exhila- 
rated with  exasperation.  He  talked  with  his  characteristic  brilliant  vio- 
lence. These  painters,  he  said,  sell  their  pictures  for  several  thousand 
francs  apiece  and  they  have  the  pretentiousness  which  comes  from  being 
valued  in  terms  of  money,  and  we  writers  who  have  twice  their  quality 
and  infinitely  greater  vitality  cannot  earn  a  living  and  have  to  beg  and 
intrigue  to  induce  publishers  to  publish  us;  but  the  time  will  come,  and 
Rene  became  prophetic,  when  these  same  painters  will  come  to  us  to 
re-create  them  and  then  we  will  contemplate  them  with  indifference. 

Rene  was  then  and  has  remained  ever  since  a  devout  surrealiste.  He 
needs  and  needed,  being  a  frenchman,  an  intellectual  as  well  as  a  basal 
justification  for  the  passionate  exaltation  in  him.  This  he  could  not  find, 
being  of  the  immediate  postwar  generation,  in  either  religion  or  patriot- 
ism, the  war  having  destroyed  for  his  generation,  both  patriotism  and 
religion  as  a  passion.  Surrcalisme  has  been  his  justification.  It  has  clari- 
fied for  him  the  confused  negation  in  which  he  lived  and  loved.  This  he 
alone  of  his  generation  has  really  succeeded  in  expressing,  a  little  in  his 
earlier  books,  and  in  his  last  book,  The  Clavecin  of  Diderot  very  ade- 
quately and  with  the  brilliant  violence  that  is  his  quality. 

Gertrude  Stein  was  at  first  not  interested  in  this  group  of  painters  as 
a  group  but  only  in  the  russian.  This  interest  gradually  increased  and 
then  she  was  bothered.  Granted,  she  used  to  say,  that  the  influences 
which  make  a  new  movement  in  art  and  literature  have  continued  and 
are  making  a  new  movement  in  art  and  literature;  in  order  to  seize  these 
influences  and  create  as  well  as  re-create  them  there  needs  a  very  domi- 
nating creative  power.  This  the  russian  manifestly  did  not  have.  Still 
there  was  a  distinctly  new  creative  idea.  Where  had  it  come  from.  Ger- 
trude Stein  always  says  to  the  young  painters  when  they  complain  that 


188  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

she  changes  her  mind  about  their  work,  it  is  not  I  that  change  my  mind 
about  the  pictures,  but  the  paintings  disappear  into  the  wall,  I  do  not 
see  them  any  more  and  then  they  go  out  of  the  door  naturally. 

In  the  meantime  as  I  have  said  George  Antheil  had  brought  Virgil 
Thomson  to  the  house  and  Virgil  Thomson  and  Gertrude  Stein  became 
friends  and  saw  each  other  a  great  deal.  Virgil  Thomson  had  put  a  num- 
ber of  Gertrude  Stein's  things  to  music,  Susie  Asado,  Preciosilla  and 
Capital  Capitals.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  much  interested  in  Virgil 
Thomson's  music.  He  had  understood  Satie  undoubtedly  and  he  had  a 
comprehension  quite  his  own  of  prosody.  He  understood  a  great  deal  of 
Gertrude  Stein's  work,  he  used  to  dream  at  night  that  there  was  some- 
thing there  that  he  did  not  understand,  but  on  the  whole  he  was  very 
well  content  with  that  which  he  did  understand.  She  delighted  in  listen- 
ing to  her  words  framed  by  his  music.  They  saw  a  great  deal  of  each 
other. 

Virgil  had  in  his  room  a  great  many  pictures  by  Christian  Berard  and 
Gertrude  Stein  used  to  look  at  them  a  great  deal.  She  could  not  find  out 
at  all  what  she  thought  about  them. 

She  and  Virgil  Thomson  used  to  talk  about  them  endlessly.  Virgil 
said  he  knew  nothing  about  pictures  but  he  thought  these  wonderful. 
Gertrude  Stein  told  him  about  her  perplexity  about  the  new  movement 
and  that  the  creative  power  behind  it  was  not  the  russian.  Virgil  said 
that  there  he  quite  agreed  with  her  and  he  was  convinced  that  it  was 
Bebe  Berard,  baptised  Christian.  She  said  that  perhaps  that  was  the  an- 
swer but  she  was  very  doubtful.  She  used  to  say  of  Bcrard's  pictures, 
they  are  almost  something  and  then  they  are  just  not.  As  she  used  to 
explain  to  Virgil,  the  Catholic  Church  makes  a  very  sharp  distinction 
between  a  hysteric  and  a  saint.  The  same  thing  holds  true  in  the  art 
world.  There  is  the  sensitiveness  of  the  hysteric  which  has  all  the  appear- 
ance of  creation,  but  actual  creation  has  an  individual  force  which  is  an 
entirely  different  thing.  Gertrude  Stein  was  inclined  to  believe  that 
artistically  Berard  was  more  hysteric  than  saint.  At  this  time  she  had 
come  back  to  portrait  writing  with  renewed  vigour  and  she,  to  clarify 
her  mind,  as  she  said,  did  portraits  of  the  russian  and  of  the  frenchman. 
In  the  meantime,  through  Virgil  Thomson,  she  had  met  a  young 
frenchman  named  Georges  Hugnet.  He  and  Gertrude  Stein  became 
very  devoted  to  one  another.  He  liked  the  sound  of  her  writing  and 
then  he  liked  the  sense  and  he  liked  the  sentences. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  189 

At  his  home  were  a  great  many  portraits  of  himself  painted  by  his 
friends.  Among  others  one  by  one  of  the  two  russian  brothers  and  one 
by  a  young  englishman.  Gertrude  Stein  was  not  particularly  interested  in 
any  of  these  portraits.  There  was  however  a  painting  of  a  hand  by  this 
young  englishman  which  she  did  not  like  but  which  she  remembered. 

Every  one  began  at  this  time  to  be  very  occupied  with  their  own 
affairs.  Virgil  Thomson  had  asked  Gertrude  Stein  to  write  an  opera  for 
him.  Among  the  saints  there  were  two  saints  whom  she  had  always  liked 
better  than  any  others,  Saint  Theresa  of  Avila  and  Ignatius  Loyola,  and 
she  said  she  would  write  him  an  opera  about  these  two  saints.  She  began 
this  and  worked  very  hard  at  it  all  that  spring  and  finally  finished  Four 
Saints  and  gave  it  to  Virgil  Thomson  to  put  to  music.  He  did.  And  it  is 
a  completely  interesting  opera  both  as  to  words  and  music. 

All  these  summers  we  had  continued  to  go  to  the  hotel  in  Belley.  We 
now  had  become  so  fond  of  this  country,  always  the  valley  of  the  Rhone, 
and  of  the  people  of  the  country,  and  the  trees  of  the  country,  and  the 
oxen  of  the  country,  that  we  began  looking  for  a  house.  One  day  we  saw 
the  house  of  our  dreams  across  a  valley.  Go  and  ask  the  farmer  there 
whose  house  that  is,  Gertrude  Stein  said  to  me.  I  said,  nonsense  it  is  an 
important  house  and  it  is  occupied.  Go  and  ask  him,  she  said.  Very  re- 
luctantly I  did.  He  said,  well  yes,  perhaps  it  is  for  rent,  it  belongs  to  a 
little  girl,  all  her  people  are  dead  and  I  think  there  is  a  lieutenant  of  the 
regiment  stationed  in  Belley  living  there  now,  but  I  understand  they 
were  to  leave.  You  might  go  and  see  the  agent  of  the  property.  We  did. 
He  was  a  kindly  old  farmer  who  always  told  us  allez  doucement,  go 
slowly.  We  did.  We  had  the  promise  of  the  house,  which  we  never  saw 
any  nearer  than  across  the  valley,  as  soon  as  the  lieutenant  should  leave. 
Finally  three  years  ago  the  lieutenant  went  to  Morocco  and  we  took  the 
house  still  only  having  seen  it  from  across  the  valley  and  we  have  liked 
it  always  more. 

While  we  were  still  staying  at  the  hotel,  Natalie  Barney  came  one 
day  and  lunched  there  bringing  some  friends,  among  them,  the  Duchess 
of  Clermont-Tonnerre.  Gertrude  Stein  and  she  were  delighted  with  one 
another  and  the  meeting  led  to  many  pleasant  consequences,  but  of  that 
later. 

To  return  to  the  painters.  Just  after  the  opera  was  finished  and  before 
leaving  Paris  we  happened  to  go  to  a  show  of  pictures  at  the  Gallerie 
Bonjean.  There  we  met  one  of  the  russian  brothers,  Genia  Berman,  and 


190  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Gertrude  Stein  was  not  uninterested  in  his  pictures.  She  went  with  him 
to  his  studio  and  looked  at  everything  he  had  ever  painted.  He  seemed 
to  have  a  purer  intelligence  than  the  other  two  painters  who  certainly 
had  not  created  the  modern  movement,  perhaps  the  idea  had  been  orig- 
inally his.  She  asked  him,  telling  her  story  as  she  was  fond  of  telling  it 
at  that  time  to  any  one  who  would  listen,  had  he  originated  the  idea. 
He  said  with  an  intelligent  inner  smile  that  he  thought  he  had.  She  was 
not  at  all  sure  that  he  was  not  right.  He  came  down  to  Bilignin  to  see 
us  and  she  slowly  concluded  that  though  he  was  a  very  good  painter  he 
was  too  bad  a  painter  to  have  been  the  creator  of  an  idea.  So  once  more 
the  search  began. 

Again  just  before  leaving  Paris  at  this  same  picture  gallery  she  saw 
a  picture  of  a  poet  sitting  by  a  waterfall.  Who  did  that,  she  said.  A  young 
englishman,  Francis  Rose,  was  the  reply.  Oh  yes  I  am  not  interested  in 
his  work.  How  much  is  that  picture,  she  said :  It  cost  very  little.  Gertrude 
Stein  says  a  picture  is  either  worth  three  hundred  francs  or  three  hun- 
dred thousand  francs.  She  bought  this  for  three  hundred  and  we  went 
away  for  the  summer. 

Georges  Hugnet  had  decided  to  become  an  editor  and  he  began  edit- 
ing the  Editions  de  la  Montagne.  Actually  it  was  George  Maratier,  every- 
body's friend  who  began  this  edition,  but  he  decided  to  go  to  America 
and  become  an  american  and  Georges  Hugnet  inherited  it.  The  first 
book  to  appear  was  sixty  pages  in  french  of  The  Making  of  Americans. 
Gertrude  Stein  and  Georges  Hugnet  translated  them  together  and  she 
was  very  happy  about  it.  This  was  later  followed  by  a  volume  of  Ten 
Portraits  written  by  Gertrude  Stein  and  illustrated  by  portraits  of  the 
artists  of  themselves,  and  of  the  others  drawn  by  them,  Virgil  Thomson 
by  Berard  and  a  drawing  of  Berard  by  himself,  a  portrait  of  Tchelitchev 
by  himself,  a  portrait  of  Picasso  by  himself  and  one  of  Guillaume  Apol- 
linaire  and  one  of  Erik  Satie  by  Picasso,  one  of  Kristians  Tonny  the 
young  dutchman  by  himself  and  one  of  Bernard  Fay  by  Tonny.  These 
volumes  were  very  well  received  and  everybody  was  pleased. 

Once  more  everybody  went  away. 

Gertrude  Stein  in  winter  takes  her  white  poodle  Basket  to  be  bathed 
at  a  vet's  and  she  used  to  go  to  the  picture  gallery  where  she  had 
bought  the  englishman's  romantic  picture  and  wait  for  Basket  to  dry. 
Every  time  she  came  home  she  brought  more  pictures  by  the  english- 
man. She  did  not  talk  much  about  it  but  they  accumulated.  Several  peo- 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  191 

pie  began  to  tell  her  about  this  young  man  and  offered  to  introduce 
him.  Gertrude  Stein  declined.  She  said  no  she  had  had  enough  of  know- 
ing young  painters,  she  now  would  content  herself  with  knowing  young 
painting. 

In  the  meantime  Georges  Hugnet  wrote  a  poem  called  Enfance.  Ger- 
trude Stein  offered  to  translate  it  for  him  but  instead  she  wrote  a  poem 
about  it.  This  at  first  pleased  Georges  Hugnet  too  much  and  then  did 
not  please  him  at  all.  Gertrude  Stein  then  called  the  poem  Before  The 
Flowers  Of  Friendship  Faded  Friendship  Faded.  Everybody  mixed 
themselves  up  in  all  this.  The  group  broke  up.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very 
upset  and  then  consoled  herself  by  telling  all  about  it  in  a  delightful  short 
story  called  From  Left  to  Right  and  which  was  printed  in  the  London 
Harper's  Bazaar. 

It  was  not  long  after  this  that  one  day  Gertrude  Stein  called  in  the 
concierge  and  asked  him  to  hang  up  all  the  Francis  Rose  pictures,  by 
this  time  there  were  some  thirty  odd.  Gertrude  Stein  was  very  much 
upset  while  she  was  having  this  done.  I  asked  her  why  she  was  doing  it 
if  it  upset  her  so  much.  She  said  she  could  not  help  it,  that  she  felt  that 
way  about  it  but  to  change  the  whole  aspect  of  the  room  by  adding  these 
thirty  pictures  was  very  upsetting.  There  the  matter  rested  for  some 
time. 

To  go  back  again  to  those  days  just  after  the  publication  of  The  Mak- 
ing of  Americans.  There  was  at  that  time  a  review  of  Gertrude  Stein's 
book  Geography  and  Plays  in  the  Athenaeum  signed  Edith  Sitwell. 
The  review  was  long  and  a  little  condescending  but  I  liked  it.  Gertrude 
Stein  had  not  cared  for  it.  A  year  later  in  the  London  Vogue  was  an 
article  again  by  Edith  Sitwell  saying  that  since  writing  her  article  in 
the  Athenaeum  she  had  spent  the  year  reading  nothing  but  Geography 
and  Plays  and  she  wished  to  say  how  important  and  beautiful  a  book 
she  had  found  it  to  be. 

One  afternoon  at  Elmer  Harden's  we  met  Miss  Todd  the  editor  of 
the  London  Vogue.  She  said  that  Edith  Sitwell  was  to  be  shortly  in  Paris 
and  wanted  very  much  to  meet  Gertrude  Stein.  She  said  that  Edith  Sit- 
well  was  very  shy  and  hesitant  about  coming.  Elmer  Harden  said  he 
would  act  as  escort. 

I  remember  so  well  my  first  impression  of  her,  an  impression  which 
indeed  has  never  changed.  Very  tall,  bending  slightly,  withdrawing  and 
hesitatingly  advancing,  and  beautiful  with  the  most  distinguished  nose 


192  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

I  have  ever  seen  on  any  human  being.  At  that  time  and  in  conversation 
between  Gertrude  Stein  and  herself  afterwards,  I  delighted  in  the  deli- 
cacy and  completeness  of  her  understanding  of  poetry.  She  and  Gertrude 
Stein  became  friends  at  once.  This  friendship  like  all  friendships  has  had 
its  difficulties  but  I  am  convinced  that  fundamentally  Gertrude  Stein 
and  Edith  Sitwell  are  friends  and  enjoy  being  friends. 

We  saw  a  great  deal  of  Edith  Sitwell  at  this  time  and  then  she  went 
back  to  London.  In  the  autumn  of  that  year  nineteen  twenty-five  Ger- 
trude Stein  had  a  letter  from  the  president  of  the  literary  society  of 
Cambridge  asking  her  to  speak  before  them  in  the  early  spring.  Gertrude 
Stein  quite  completely  upset  at  the  very  idea  quite  promptly  answered 
no.  Immediately  came  a  letter  from  Edith  Sitwell  saying  that  the  no 
must  be  changed  to  yes.  That  it  was  of  the  first  importance  that  Ger- 
trude Stein  should  deliver  this  address  and  that  moreover  Oxford  was 
waiting  for  the  yes  to  be  given  to  Cambridge  to  ask  her  to  do  the  same 
at  Oxford. 

There  was  very  evidently  nothing  to  do  but  to  say  yes  and  so  Ger- 
trude Stein  said  yes. 

She  was  very,  upset  at  the  prospect,  peace,  she  said,  had  much  greater 
terrors  than  war.  Precipices  even  were  nothing  to  this.  She  was  very  low 
in  her  mind.  Luckily  early  in  January  the  ford  car  began  to  have  every- 
thing the  matter  with  it.  The  better  garages  would  not  pay  much  atten- 
tion to  aged  fords  and  Gertrude  Stein  used  to  take  hers  out  to  a  shed 
in  Montrouge  where  the  mechanics  worked  at  it  while  she  sat.  If  she 
were  to  leave  it  there  there  would  most  likely  have  been  nothing  left  of 
it  to  drive  away. 

One  cold  dark  afternoon  she  went  out  to  sit  with  her  ford  car  and 
while  she  sat  on  the  steps  of  another  battered  ford  watching  her  own 
being  taken  to  pieces  and  put  together  again,  she  began  to  write.  She 
stayed  there  several  hours  and  when  she  came  back  chilled,  with  the 
ford  repaired,  she  had  written  the  whole  of  Composition  As  Explanation. 

Once  the  lecture  written  the  next  trouble  was  the  reading  of  it. 
Everybody  gave  her  advice.  She  read  it  to  anybody  who  came  to  the 
house  and  some  of  them  read  it  to  her.  Prichard  happened  to  be  in  Paris 
just  then  and  he  and  Emily  Chadbourne  between  them  gave  advice 
and  were  an  audience.  Prichard  showed  her  how  to  read  it  in  the  english 
manner  but  Emily  Chadbourne  was  all  for  the  american  manner  and 
Gertrude  Stein  was  too  worried  to  have  any  manner.  We  went  one  after- 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  193 

noon  to  Natalie  Barney's.  There  there  was  a  very  aged  and  a  very 
charming  french  professor  of  history.  Natalie  Barney  asked  him  to  tell 
Gertrude  Stein  how  to  lecture.  Talk  as  quickly  as  you  can  and  never 
look  up,  was  his  advice.  Prichard  had  said  talk  as  slowly  as  possible 
and  never  look  down.  At  any  rate  I  ordered  a  new  dress  and  a  new  hat 
for  Gertrude  Stein  and  early  in  the  spring  we  went  to  London. 

This  was  the  spring  of  twenty-six  and  England  was  still  very  strict 
about  passports.  We  had  ours  alright  but  Gertrude  Stein  hates  to  answer 
questions  from  officials,  it  always  worries  her  and  she  was  already  none 
too  happy  at  the  prospect  of  lecturing. 

So  taking  both  passports  I  went  down  stairs  to  see  the  officials.  Ah, 
said  one  of  them,  and  where  is  Miss  Gertrude  Stein.  She  is  on  deck, 
I  replied,  and  she  does  not  care  to  come  down.  She  does  not  care  to 
come  down,  he  repeated,  yes  that  is  quite  right,  she  does  not  care  to  come 
down,  and  he  affixed  the  required  signatures.  So  then  we  arrived  in 
London.  Edith  Sitwell  gave  a  party  for  us  and  so  did  her  brother  Osbert. 
Osbert  was  a  great  comfort  to  Gertrude  Stein.  He  so  thoroughly  under- 
stood every  possible  way  in  which  one  could  be  nervous  that  as  he  sat 
beside  her  in  the  hotel  telling  her  all  the  kinds  of  ways  that  he  and  she 
could  suffer  from  stage  fright  she  was  quite  soothed.  She  was  always 
very  fond  of  Osbert.  She  always  said  he  was  like  an  uncle  of  a  king.  He 
had  that  pleasant  kindly  irresponsible  agitated  calm  that  an  uncle  of  an 
cnglish  king  always  must  have. 

Finally  we  arrived  in  Cambridge  in  the  afternoon,  were  given  tea 
and  then  dined  with  the  president  of  the  society  and  some  of  his  friends. 
It  was  very  pleasant  and  after  dinner  we  went  to  the  lecture  room.  It  was 
a  varied  audience,  men  and  women.  Gertrude  Stein  was  soon  at  her  ease, 
the  lecture  went  off  very  well,  the  men  afterwards  asked  a  great  many 
questions  and  were  very  enthusiastic.  The  women  said  nothing.  Ger- 
trude Stein  wondered  whether  they  were  supposed  not  to  or  just  did  not. 

The  day  after  we  went  to  Oxford.  There  we  lunched  with  young 
Acton  and  then  went  in  to  the  lecture.  Gertrude  Stein  was  feeling  more 
comfortable  as  a  lecturer  and  this  time  she  had  a  wonderful  time.  As 
she  remarked  afterwards,  I  felt  just  like  a  prima  donna. 

The  lecture  room  was  full,  many  standing  in  the  back,  and  the  dis- 
cussion, after  the  lecture,  lasted  over  an  hour  and  no  one  left.  It  was 
very  exciting.  They  asked  all  sorts  of  questions,  they  wanted  to  know 
most  often  why  Gertrude  Stein  thought  she  was  right  in  doing  the  kind 


194  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

of  writing  she  did.  She  answered  that  it  was  not  a  question  of  what  any 
one  thought  but  after  all  she  had  been  doing  as  she  did  for  about  twenty 
years  and  now  they  wanted  to  hear  her  lecture.  This  did  not  mean  of 
course  that  they  were  coming  to  think  that  her  way  was  a  possible  way, 
it  proved  nothing,  but  on  the  other  hand  it  did  possibly  indicate  some- 
thing. They  laughed.  Then  up  jumped  one  man,  it  turned  out  after- 
wards that  he  was  a  dean,  and  he  said  that  in  the  Saints  in  Seven  he  had 
been  very  interested  in  the  sentence  about  the  ring  around  the  moon, 
about  the  ring  following  the  moon.  He  admitted  that  the  sentence  was 
one  of  the  most  beautifully  balanced  sentences  he  had  ever  heard,  but 
still  did  the  ring  follow  the  moon.  Gertrude  Stein  said,  when  you  look 
at  the  moon  and  there  is  a  ring  around  the  moon  and  the  moon  moves 
does  not  the  ring  follow  the  moon.  Perhaps  it  seems  to,  he  replied. 
Well,  in  that  case  how,  she  said,  do  you  know  that  it  does  not;  he  sat 
down.  Another  man,  a  don,  next  to  him  jumped  up  and  asked  some- 
thing else.  They  did  this  several  times,  the  two  of  them,  jumping  up  one 
after  the  other.  Then  the  first  man  jumped  up  and  said,  you  say  that 
everything  being  the  same  everything  is  always  different,  how  can  that 
be  so.  Consider,  she  replied,  the  two  of  you,  you  jump  up  one  after  the 
other,  that  is  the  same  thing  and  surely  you  admit  that  the  two  of  you 
are  always  different.  Touche,  he  said  and  the  meeting  was  over.  One 
of  the  men  was  so  moved  that  he  confided  to  me  as  we  went  out  that 
the  lecture  had  been  his  greatest  experience  since  he  had  read  Kant's 
Critique  of  Pure  Reason. 

Edith  Sitwell,  Osbert  and  Sacheverell  were  all  present  and  were  all 
delighted.  They  were  delighted  with  the  lecture  and  they  were  delighted 
with  the  good  humoured  way  in  which  Gertrude  Stein  had  gotten  the 
best  of  the  hecklers.  Edith  Sitwell  said  that  Sache  chuckled  about  it  all 
the  way  home. 

The  next  day  we  returned  to  Paris.  The  Sitwells  wanted  us  to  stay 
and  be  interviewed  and  generally  go  on  with  it  but  Gertrude  Stein  felt 
that  she  had  had  enough  of  glory  and  excitement.  Not,  as  she  always 
explains,  that  she  could  ever  have  enough  of  glory.  After  all,  as  she  al- 
ways contends,  no  artist  needs  criticism,  he  only  needs  appreciation.  If  he 
needs  criticism  he  is  no  artist. 

Leonard  Woolf  some  months  after  this  published  Composition  As 
Explanation  in  the  Hogarth  Essay  Series.  It  was  also  printed  in  The 
Dial. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  195 

Mildred  Aldrich  was  awfully  pleased  at  Gertrude  Stein's  english  suc- 
cess. She  was  a  good  new  englander  and  to  her,  recognition  by  Oxford 
and  Cambridge,  was  even  more  important  than  recognition  by  the  At- 
lantic Monthly.  We  went  out  to  see  her  on  our  return  and  she  had  to 
have  the  lecture  read  to  her  again  and  to  hear  every  detail  of  the  whole 
experience. 

Mildred  Aldrich  was  falling  upon  bad  days.  Her  annuity  suddenly 
ceased  and  for  a  long  time  we  did  not  know  it.  One  day  Dawson  John- 
ston, the  librarian  of  the  American  Library,  told  Gertrude  Stein  that 
Miss  Aldrich  had  written  to  him  to  come  out  and  get  all  her  books  as 
she  would  soon  be  leaving  her  home.  We  went  out  immediately  and 
Mildred  told  us  that  her  annuity  had  been  stopped.  It  seems  it  was  an 
annuity  given  by  a  woman  who  had  fallen  into  her  dotage  and  she  one 
morning  told  her  lawyer  to  cut  off  all  the  annuities  that  she  had  given 
for  many  years  to  a  number  of  people.  Gertrude  Stein  told  Mildred  not 
to  worry.  The  Carnegie  Fund,  approached  by  Kate  Buss,  sent  five  hun- 
dred dollars,  William  Cook  gave  Gertrude  Stein  a  blank  cheque  to 
supply  all  deficiencies,  another  friend  of  Mildred's  from  Providence 
-.Rhode  Island  came  forward  generously  and  the  Atlantic  Monthly  started 
a  fund.  Very  soon  Mildred  Aldrich  was  safe.  She  said  ruefully  to  Ger- 
trude Stein,  you  would  not  let  me  go  elegantly  to  the  poorhouse  and  I 
would  have  gone  elegantly,  but  you  have  turned  this  into  a  poor  house 
and  I  am  the  sole  inmate.  Gertrude  Stein  comforted  her  and  said  that 
she  could  be  just  as  elegant  in  her  solitary  state.  After  all,  Gertrude  Stein 
used  to  say  to  her,  Mildred  nobody  can  say  that  you  have  not  had  a  good 
run  for  your  money.  Mildred  Aldrich's  last  years  were  safe. 

William  Cook 'after  the  war  had  been  in  Russia,  in  Tiflis,  for  three 
years  in  connection  with  Red  Cross  distribution  there.  One  evening  he 
and  Gertrude  Stein  had  been  out  to  see  Mildred,  it  was  during  her  last 
illness  and  they  were  coming  home  one  foggy  evening.  Cook  had  a  small 
open  car  but  a  powerful  searchlight,  strong  enough  to  pierce  the  fog. 
Just  behind  them  was  another  small  car  which  kept  an  even  pace  with 
them,  when  Cook  drove  faster,  they  drove  faster,  and  when  he  slowed 
down,  they  slowed  down.  Gertrude  Stein  said  to  him,  it  is  lucky  for 
them  that  you  have  such  a  bright  light,  their  lanterns  are  poor  and  they 
are  having  the  benefit  of  yours.  Yes,  said  Cook,  rather  curiously,  I  have 
been  saying  that  to  myself,  but  you  know  after  three  years  of  Soviet 
Russia  and  the  Cheka,  even  I,  an  american,  have  gotten  to  feel  a  little 


196  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

queer,  and  I  have  to  talk  to  myself  about  it,  to  be  sure  that  the  car 
behind  us  is  not  the  car  of  the  secret  police. 

I  said  that  Rene  Crevel  came  to  the  house.  Of  all  the  young  men  who 
came  to  the  house  I  think  I  liked  Rene  the  best.  He  had  french  charm, 
which  when  it  is  at  its  most  charming  is  more  charming  even  than  amer- 
ican  charm,  charming  as  that  can  be.  Marcel  Duchamp  and  Rene  Crevel 
are  perhaps  the  most  complete  examples  of  this  french  charm.  We  were 
very  fond  of  Rene.  He  was  young  and  violent  and  ill  and  revolutionary 
and  sweet  and  tender.  Gertrude  Stein  and  Rene  are  very  fond  of  each 
other,  he  writes  her  most  delightful  english  letters,  and  she  scolds  him 
a  great  deal.  It  was  he  who,  in  early  days,  first  talked  to  us  of  Bernard 
Fay.  He  said  he  was  a  young  professor  in  the  University  of  Clermont- 
Ferrand  and  he  wanted  to  take  us  to  his  house.  One  afternoon  he  did 
take  us  there.  Bernard  Fay  was  not  at  all  what  Gertrude  Stein  expected 
and  he  and  she  had  nothing  in  particular  to  say  to  each  other. 

As  I  remember  during  that  winter  and  the  next  we  gave  a  great  many 
parties.  We  gave  a  tea  party  for  the  Sitwells. 

Carl  Van  Vechten  sent  us  quantities  of  negroes  beside  there  were 
the  negroes  of  our  neighbour  Mrs.  Regan  who  had  brought  Josephine 
Baker  to  Paris.  Carl  sent  us  Paul  Robeson.  Paul  Robeson  interested  Ger- 
trude Stein.  He  knew  american  values  and  american  life  as  only  one  in 
it  but  not  of  it  could  know  them.  And  yet  as  soon  as  any  other  person 
came  into  the  room  he  became  definitely  a  negro.  Gertrude  Stein  did 
not  like  hearing  him  sing  spirituals.  They  do  not  belong  to  you  any 
more  than  anything  else,  so  why  claim  them,  she  said.  He  did  not 
answer. 

Once  a  southern  woman,  a  very  charming  southern  woman,  was  there, 
and  she  said  to  him,  where  were  you  born,  and  he  answered,  in  New 
Jersey  and  she  said,  not  in  the  south,  what  a  pity  and  he  said,  not  for  me. 

Gertrude  Stein  concluded  that  negroes  were  not  suffering  from  per- 
secution, they  were  suffering  from  nothingness.  She  always  contends  that 
the  african  is  not  primitive,  he  has  a  very  ancient  but  a  very  narrow 
culture  and  there  it  remains.  Consequently  nothing  does  or  can  happen. 

Carl  Van  Vechten  himself  came  over  for  the  first  time  since  those  far 
away  days  of  the  pleated  shirt.  All  those  years  he  and  Gertrude  Stein 
had  kept  up  a  friendship  and  a  correspondence.  Now  that  he  was  actu- 
ally coming  Gertrude  Stein  was  a  little  worried.  When  he  came  they 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  197 

were  better  friends  than  ever.  Gertrude  Stein  told  him  that  she  had  been 
worried.  I  wasn't,  said  Carl. 

Among  the  other  young  men  who  came  to  the  house  at  the  time  when 
they  came  in  such  numbers  was  Bravig  Imbs.  We  liked  Bravig,  even 
though  as  Gertrude  Stein  said,  his  aim  was  to  please.  It  was  he  who 
brought  Elliot  Paul  to  the  house  and  Elliot  Paul  brought  transition. 

We  had  liked  Bravig  Imbs  but  we  liked  Elliot  Paul  more.  He  was  very 
interesting.  Elliot  Paul  was  a  new  englander  but  he  was  a  saracen,  a 
saracen  such  as  you  sometimes  see  in  the  villages  of  France  where  the 
strain  from  some  Crusading  ancestor's  dependents  still  survives.  Elliot 
Paul  was  such  a  one.  He  had  an  element  not  of  mystery  but  of  eva- 
nescence, actually  little  by  little  he  appeared  and  then  as  slowly  he  dis- 
appeared, and  Eugene  Jolas  and  Maria  Jolas  appeared.  These  once  hav- 
ing appeared,  stayed  in  their  appearance. 

Elliot  Paul  was  at  that  time  working  on  the  Paris  Chicago  Tribune 
and  he  was  there  writing  a  series  of  articles  on  the  work  of  Gertrude 
Stein,  the  first  seriously  popular  estimation  of  her  work.  At  the  same 
time  he  was  turning  the  young  journalists  and  proof-readers  into  writers. 
He  started  Bravig  Imbs  on  his  first  book,  The  Professor's  Wife,  by  stop- 
ping him  suddenly  in  his  talk  and  saying,  you  begin  there.  He  did  the 
same  thing  for  others.  He  played  the  accordion  as  nobody  else  not  native 
to  the  accordion  could  play  it  and  he  learned  and  played  for  Gertrude 
Stein  accompanied  on  the  violin  by  Bravig  Imbs,  Gertrude  Stein's  fa- 
vourite ditty,  The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine,  My  name  is  June  and 
very  very  soon. 

The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine  as  a  song  made  a  lasting  appeal  to 
Gertrude  Stein.  Mildred  Aldrich  had  it  among  her  records  and  when 
we  spent  the  afternoon  with  her  at  Huiry,  Gertrude  Stein  inevitably 
would  start  The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine  on  the  phonograph  and 
play  it  and  play  it.  She  liked  it  in  itself  and  she  had  been  fascinated 
during  the  war  with  the  magic  of  The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine  as 
a  book  for  the  doughboy.  How  often  when  a  doughboy  in  hospital  had 
become  particularly  fond  of  her,  he  would  say,  I  once  read  a  great  book, 
do  you  know  it,  it  is  called  The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine.  They  finally 
got  a  copy  of  it  in  the  camp  at  Nimes  and  it  stayed  by  the  bedside  of 
every  sick  soldier.  They  did  not  read  much  of  it,  as  far  as  she  could  make 
out  sometimes  only  a  paragraph,  in  the  course  of  several  days,  but  their 


198  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

voices  were  husky  when  they  spoke  of  it,  and  when  they  were  particu- 
larly devoted  to  her  they  would  ofTer  to  lend  her  this  very  dirty  and  tat- 
tered copy. 

She  reads  anything  and  naturally  she  read  this  and  she  was  puzzled. 
It  had  practically  no  story  to  it  and  it  was  not  exciting,  or  adventurous, 
and  it  was  very  well  written  and  was  mostly  description  of  mountain 
scenery.  Later  on  she  came  across  some  reminiscences  of  a  southern 
woman  who  told  how  the  mountaineers  in  the  southern  army  during 
the  civil  war  used  to  wait  in  turn  to  read  Victor  Hugo's  Les  Miserables, 
an  equally  astonishing  thing  for  again  there  is  not  much  of  a  story  and 
a  great  deal  of  description.  However  Gertrude  Stein  admits  that  she 
loves  the  song  of  The  Trail  of  the  Lonesome  Pine  in  the  same  way  that 
the  doughboy  loved  the  book  and  Elliot  Paul  played  it  for  her  on  the 
accordion. 

One  day  Elliot  Paul  came  in  very  excitedly,  he  usually  seemed  to  be 
feeling  a  great  deal  of  excitement  but  neither  showed  nor  expressed  it. 
This  time  however  he  did  show  it  and  express  it.  He  said  he  wanted  to 
ask  Gertrude  Stein's  advice.  A  proposition  had  been  made  to  him  to 
edit  a  magazine  in  Paris  and  he  was  hesitating  whether  he  should  under- 
take it.  Gertrude  Stein  was  naturally  all  for  it.  After  all,  as  she  said,  we 
do  want  to  be  printed.  One  writes  for  oneself  and  strangers  but  with  no 
adventurous  publishers  how  can  one  come  in  contact  with  those  same 
strangers. 

However  she  was  very  fond  of  Elliot  Paul  and  did  not  want  him  to 
take  too  much  risk.  No  risk,  said  Elliot  Paul,  the  money  for  it  is  guar- 
anteed for  a  number  of  years.  Well  then,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  one  thing 
is  certain  no  one  could  be  a  better  editor  than  you  would  be.  You  are  not 
egotistical  and  you  know  what  you  feel. 

Transition  began  and  of  course  it  meant  a  great  deal  to  everybody. 
Elliot  Paul  chose  with  great  care  what  he  wanted  to  put  into  transition. 
He  said  he  was  afraid  of  its  becoming  too  popular.  If  ever  there  are  more 
than  two  thousand  subscribers,  I  quit,  he  used  to  say. 

He  chose  Elucidation  Gertrude  Stein's  first  effort  to  explain  herself, 
written  in  Saint-Remy  to  put  into  the  first  number  of  transition.  Later 
As  A  Wife  Has  A  Cow  A  Love  Story.  He  was  always  very  enthusiastic 
about  this  story.  He  liked  Made  A  Mile  Away,  a  description  of  the  pic- 
tures that  Gertrude  Stein  has  liked  and  later  a  novelette  of  desertion  If 
He  Thinks,  for  transition.  He  had  a  perfectly  definite  idea  of  gradually 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  199 

opening  the  eyes  of  the  public  to  the  work  of  the  writers  that  interested 
him  and  as  I  say  he  chose  what  he  wanted  with  great  care.  He  was  very 
interested  in  Picasso  and  he  became  very  deeply  interested  in  Juan  Gris 
and  after  his  death  printed  a  translation  of  Juan  Gris'  defence  of  paint- 
ing which  had  already  been  printed  in  french  in  the  Transatlantic  Re- 
view, and  he  printed  Gertrude  Stein's  lament,  The  Life  and  Death  of 
Juan  Gris  and  her  One  Spaniard. 

Elliot  Paul  slowly  disappeared  and  Eugene  and  Maria  Jolas  appeared. 

Transition  grew  more  bulky.  At  Gertrude  Stein's  request  transition 
reprinted  Tender  Buttons,  printed  a  bibliography  of  all  her  work  up  to 
date  and  later  printed  her  opera,  Four  Saints.  For  these  printings  Ger- 
trude Stein  was  very  grateful.  In  the  last  numbers  of  transition  nothing 
of  hers  appeared.  Transition  died. 

Of  all  the  little  magazines  which  as  Gertrude  Stein  loves  to  quote, 
have  died  to  make  verse  free,  perhaps  the  youngest  and  freshest  was  the 
Blues.  Its  editor  Charles  Henri  Ford  has  come  to  Paris  and  he  is  young 
and  fresh  as  his  Blues  and  also  honest  which  also  is  a  pleasure.  Gertrude 
Stein  thinks  that  he  and  Robert  Coates  alone  among  the  young  men 
have  an  individual  sense  of  words. 

During  this  time  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men  turned  up  from  time 
to  time  at  the  rue  de  Fleurus.  One  of  them  brought  with  him  Brewer, 
one  of  the  firm  of  Payson  and  Clarke. 

Brewer  was  interested  in  the  work  of  Gertrude  Stein  and  though  he 
promised  nothing  he  and  she  talked  over  the  possibilities  of  his  firm 
printing  something  of  hers.  She  had  just  written  a  shortish  novel  called 
A  Novel,  and  was  at  the  time  working  at  another  shortish  novel  which 
was  called  Lucy  Church  Amiably  and  which  she  describes  as  a  novel  of 
romantic  beauty  and  nature  and  which  looks  like  an  engraving.  She  at 
Brewer's  request  wrote  a  summary  of  this  book  as  an  advertisement  and 
he  cabled  his  enthusiasm.  However  he  wished  first  to  commence  with 
a  collection  of  short  things  and  she  suggested  in  that  case  he  should  make 
it  all  the  short  things  she  had  written  about  America  and  call  it  Useful 
Knowledge.  This  was  done. 

There  are  many  Paris  picture  dealers  who  like  adventure  in  their 
business,  there  are  no  publishers  in  America  who  like  adventure  in  theirs. 
In  Paris  there  are  picture  dealers  like  Durand-Ruel  who  went  broke 
twice  suporting  the  impressionists,  Vollard  for  Cezanne,  Sagot  for 
Picasso  and  Kahnweiler  for  all  the  cubists.  They  make  their  money  as 


200  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

t 

they  can  and  they  keep  on  buying  something  for  which  there  is  no 
present  sale  and  they  do  so  persistently  until  they  create  its  public.  And 
these  adventurers  are  adventurous  because  that  is  the  way  they  feel  about 
it.  There  are  others  who  have  not  chosen  as  well  and  have  gone  entirely 
broke.  It  is  the  tradition  among  the  more  adventurous  Paris  picture 
dealers  to  adventure.  I  suppose  there  are  a  great  many  reasons  why  pub- 
lishers do  not.  John  Lane  alone  among  publishers  did.  He  perhaps  did 
not  die  a  very  rich  man  but  he  lived  well,  and  died  a  moderately  rich  one. 

We  had  a  hope  that  Brewer  might  be  this  kind  of  a  publisher.  He 
printed  Useful  Knowledge,  his  results  were  not  all  that  he  anticipated 
and  instead  of  continuing  and  gradually  creating  a  public  for  Gertrude 
Stein's  work  he  procrastinated  and  then  said  no.  I  suppose  this  was  in- 
evitable. However  that  was  the  matter  as  it  was  and  as  it  continued  to  be. 

I  now  myself  began  to  think  about  publishing  the  work  of  Gertrude 
Stein.  I  asked  her  to  invent  a  name  for  my  edition  and  she  laughed  and 
said,  call  it  Plain  Edition.  And  Plain  Edition  it  is. 

All  that  I  knew  about  what  I  would  have  to  do  was  that  I  would  have 
to  get  the  book  printed  and  then  to  get  it  distributed,  that  is  sold. 

I  talked  to  everybody  about  how  these  two  things  were  to  be  accom- 
plished. 

At  first  I  thought  I  would  associate  some  one  with  me  but  that  soon 
did  not  please  me  and  I  decided  to  do  it  all  by  myself. 

Gertrude  Stein  wanted  the  first  book  Lucy  Church  Amiably  to  look 
like  a  school  book  and  to  be  bound  in  blue.  Once  having  ordered  my 
book  to  be  printed  my  next  problem  was  the  problem  of  distribution. 
On  this  subject  I  received  a  great  deal  of  advice.  Some  of  the  advice 
turned  out  to  be  good  and  some  of  it  turned  out  to  be  bad.  William  A. 
Bradley,  the  friend  and  comforter  of  Paris  authors,  told  me  to  subscribe 
to  The  Publishers'  Weekly.  This  was  undoubtedly  wise  advice.  This 
helped  me  to  learn  something  of  my  new  business,  but  the  real  difficulty 
was  to  get  to  the  booksellers.  Ralph  Church,  philosopher  and  friend, 
said  stick  to  the  booksellers,  first  and  last.  Excellent  advice  but  how  to 
get  to  the  booksellers.  At  this  moment  a  kind  friend  said  that  she  could 
get  me  copied  an  old  list  of  booksellers  belonging  to  a  publisher.  This 
list  was  sent  to  me  and  I  began  sending  out  my  circulars.  The  circular 
pleased  me  at  first  but  I  soon  concluded  that  it  was  not  quite  right.  How- 
ever I  did  get  orders  from  America  and  I  was  paid  without  much  diffi- 
culty and  I  was  encouraged. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  201 

The  distribution  in  Paris  was  at  once  easier  and  more  difficult.  It  was 
easy  to  get  the  book  put  in  the  window  of  all  the  booksellers  in  Paris  that 
sold  english  books.  This  event  gave  Gertrude  Stein  a  childish  delight 
amounting  almost  to  ecstasy.  She  had  never  seen  a  book  of  hers  in  a 
bookstore  window  before,  except  a  french  translation  of  The  Ten  Por- 
traits, and  she  spent  all  her  time  in  her  wanderings  about  Paris  looking 
at  the  copies  of  Lucy  Church  Amiably  in  the  windows  and  coming  back 
and  telling  me  about  it. 

The  books  were  sold  too  and  then  as  I  was  away  from  Paris  six  months 
in  the  year  I  turned  over  the  Paris  work  to  a  french  agent.  This  worked 
very  well  at  first  but  finally  did  not  work  well.  However  one  must  learn 
one's  trade. 

I  decided  upon  my  next  book  How  To  Write  and  not  being  entirely 
satisfied  with  the  get  up  of  Lucy  Church  Amiably,  although  it  did  look 
like  a  school  book,  I  decided  to  have  the  next  book  printed  at  Dijon  and 
in  the  form  of  an  Elzevir.  Again  the  question  of  binding  was  a  difficulty. 

I  went  to  work  in  the  same  way  to  sell  How  To  Write,  but  I  began 
to  realise  that  my  list  of  booksellers  was  out  of  date.  Also  I  was  told  that 
I  should  write  following  up  letters.  Ellen  du  Pois  helped  me  with  these. 
I  was  told  that  I  should  have  reviews.  Ellen  du  Pois  came  to  the  rescue 
here  too.  And  that  I  should  advertise.  Advertising  would  of  necessity 
be  too  expensive;  I  had  to  keep  my  money  to  print  my  books,  as  my  plans 
were  getting  more  and  more  ambitious.  Getting  reviews  was  a  difficulty, 
there  are  always  plenty  of  humorous  references  to  Gertrude  Stein's  work, 
as  Gertrude  Stein  always  says  to  comfort  herself,  they  do  quote  me,  that 
means  that  my  words  and  my  sentences  get  under  their  skins  although 
they  do  not  know  it.  It  was  difficult  to  get  serious  reviews.  There  are 
many  writers  who  write  her  letters  of  admiration  but  even  when  they 
are  in  a  position  to  do  so  they  do  not  write  themselves  down  in  book 
reviews.  Gertrude  Stein  likes  to  quote  Browning  who  at  a  dinner  party 
met  a  famous  literary  man  and  this  man  came  up  to  Browning  and 
spoke  to  him  at  length  and  in  a  very  laudatory  way  about  his  poems. 
Browning  listened  and  then  said,  and  are  you  going  to  print  what  you 
have  just  said.  There  was  naturally  no  answer.  In  Gertrude  Stein's  case 
there  have  been  some  notable  exceptions,  Sherwood  Anderson,  Edith 
Sitwell,  Bernard  Fay  and  Louis  Bromfield. 

I  also  printed  an  edition  of  one  hundred  copies,  very  beautifully  done 
at  Chartres,  of  the  poem  of  Gertrude  Stein  Before  The  Flowers  Of 


202  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Friendship  Faded  Friendship  Faded.  These  one  hundred  copies  sold 
very  easily. 

I  was  better  satisfied  with  the  bookmaking  of  How  To  Write  but 
there  was  always  the  question  of  binding  the  book.  It  is  practically  im- 
possible to  get  a  decent  commercial  binding  in  France,  french  publish- 
ers only  cover  their  books  in  paper.  I  was  very  troubled  about  this. 

One  evening  we  went  to  an  evening  party  at  Georges  Poupet's,  a 
gentle  friend  of  authors.  There  I  met  Maurice  Darantiere.  It  was  he 
who  had  printed  The  Making  of  Americans  and  he  was  always  justly 
proud  of  it  as  a  book  and  as  bookmaking.  He  had  left  Dijon  and  had 
started  printing  books  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Paris  with  a  hand-press 
and  he  was  printing  very  beautiful  books.  He  js  a  kind  man  and  I  natu- 
rally began  telling  him  my  troubles.  Listen,  he  said  I  have  the  solution. 
But  I  interrupted  him,  you  must  remember  that  I  do  not  want  to  make 
these  books  expensive.  After  all  Gertrude  Stein's  readers  are  writers, 
university  students,  librarians  and  young  people  who  have  very  little 
money.  Gertrude  Stein  wants  readers  not  collectors.  In  spite  of  herself 
her  books  have  too  often  become  collector's  books.  They  pay  big  prices 
for  Tender  Buttons  and  The  Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge  and  that  does 
not  please  her,  she  wants  her  books  read  not  owned.  Yes  yes,  he  said,  I 
understand.  No  this  is  what  I  propose.  We  will  have  your  book  set  by 
monotype  which  is  comparatively  cheap,  I  will  see  to  that,  then  I  will 
handpull  your  books  on  good  but  not  too  expensive  paper  and  they  will 
be  beautifully  printed  and  instead  of  any  covers  I  will  have  them  bound 
in  heavy  paper  like  The  Making  of  Americans,  paper  just  like  that,  and 
I  will  have  made  little  boxes  in  which  they  will  fit  perfectly,  well  made 
little  boxes  and  there  you  are.  And  I  will  be  able  to  sell  them  at  a  rea- 
sonable price.  Yes  you  will  see,  he  said. 

I  was  getting  more  ambitious  I  wished  now  to  begin  a  series  of  three, 
beginning  with  Operas  and  Plays,  going  on  with  Matisse,  Picasso  and 
Gertrude  Stein  and  Two  Shorter  Stories,  and  then  going  on  with  Two 
Long  Poems  and  Many  Shorter  Ones. 

Maurice  Darantiere  has  been  as  good  as  his  word.  He  has  printed 
Operas  and  Plays  and  it  is  a  beautiful  book  and  reasonable  in  price  and 
he  is  now  printing  the  second  book  Matisse  Picasso  and  Gertrude  Stein 
and  Two  Shorter  Stories.  Now  I  have  an  up  to  date  list  of  booksellers 
and  I  am  once  more  on  my  way. 

As  I  was  saying  after  the  return  from  England  and  lecturing  we  gave 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  203 

a  great  many  parties,  there  were  many  occasions  for  parties,  all  the  Sit- 
wells  came  over,  Carl  Van  Vechten  came  over,  Sherwood  Anderson 
came  over  again.  And  beside  there  were  many  other  occasions  for  parties. 

It  was  then  that  Gertrude  Stein  and  Bernard  Fay  met  again  and  this 
time  they  had  a  great  deal  to  say  to  each  other.  Gertrude  Stein  found  the 
contact  with  his  mind  stimulating  and  comforting.  They  were  slowly 
coming  to  be  friends. 

I  remember  once  coming  into  the  room  and  hearing  Bernard  Fay  say 
that  the  three  people  of  first  rate  importance  that  he  had  met  in  his  life 
were  Picasso,  Gertrude  Stein  and  Andre  Gide  and  Gertrude  Stein  in- 
quired quite  simply,  that  is  quite  right  but  why  include  Gide.  A  year  or 
so  later  in  referring  to  this  conversation  he  said  to  her,  and  I  ahi  not  sure 
you  were  not  right. 

Sherwood  came  to  Paris  that  winter  and  he  was  a  delight.  He  was 
enjoying  himself  and  we  enjoyed  him.  He  was  being  lionised  and  I  must 
say  he  was  a  very  appearing  and  disappearing  lion.  I  remember  his  being 
asked  to  the  Pen  Club.  Natalie  Barney  and  a  long-bearded  frenchman 
were  to  be  his  sponsors.  He  wanted  Gertrude  Stein  to  come  too.  She 
said  she  loved  him  very  much  but  not  the  Pen  Club.  Natalie  Barney 
came  over  to  ask  her.  Gertrude  Stein  who  was  caught  outside,  walking 
her  dog,  pleaded  illness.  The  next  day  Sherwood  turned  up.  How  was 
it,  asked  Gertrude  Stein.  Why,  said  he,  it  wasn't  a  party  for  me,  it  was 
a  party  for  a  big  woman,  and  she  was  just  a  derailed  freight  car.  • 

We  had  installed  electric  radiators  in  the  studio,  we  were  as  our  finnish 
servant  would  say  getting  modern.  She  finds  it  difficult  to  understand 
why  we  are  not  more  modern.  Gertrude  Stein  says  that  if  you  are  way 
ahead  with  your  head  you  naturally  are  old  fashioned  and  regular  in 
your  daily  life.  And  Picasso  adds,  do  you  suppose  Michael  Angelo  would 
have  been  grateful  for  a  gift  of  a  piece  of  renaissance  furniture,  no  he 
wanted  a  greek  coin. 

We  did  install  electric  radiators  and  Sherwood  turned  up  and  we  gave 
him  a  Christmas  party.  The  radiators  smelled  and  it  was  terrifically  hot 
but  we  were  all  pleased  as  it  was  a  nice  party.  Sherwood  looked  as  usual 
very  handsome  in  one  of  his  very  latest  scarf  ties.  Sherwood  Anderson 
does  dress  well  and  his  son  John  follows  suit.  John  and  his  sister  came 
over  with  their  father.  While  Sherwood  was  still  in  Paris  John  the  son 
was  an  awkward  shy  boy.  The  day  after  Sherwood  left  John  turned  up, 
sat  easily  on  the  arm  of  the  sofa  and  was  beautiful  to  look  upon  and  he 


204  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

knew  it.  Nothing  to  the  outward  eye  had  changed  but  he  had  changed 
and  he  knew  it. 

It  was  during  this  visit  that  Gertrude  Stein  and  Sherwood  Anderson 
had  all  those  amusing  conversations  about  Hemingway.  They  enjoyed 
each  other  thoroughly.  They  found  out  that  they  both  had  had  and 
continued  to  have  Grant  as  their  great  american  hero.  They  did  not  care 
so  much  about  Lincoln  either  of  them.  They  had  always  and  still  liked 
Grant.  They  even  planned  collaborating  on  a  life  of  Grant.  Gertrude 
Stein  still  likes  to  think  about  this  possibility. 

We  did  give  a  great  many  parties  in  those  days  and  the  Duchess  of 
Clermont-Tonnerre  came  very  often. 

She  and  Gertrude  Stein  pleased«one  another.  They  were  entirely  dif- 
ferent in  life  education  and  interests  but  they  delighted  in  each  other's 
understanding.  They  were  also  the  only  two  women  whom  they  met 
who  still  had  long  hair.  Gertrude  Stein  had  always  worn  hers  well  on 
top  of  her  head,  an  ancient  fashion  that  she  had  never  changed. 

Madame  de  Clermont-Tonnerre  came  in  very  late  to  one  of  the 
parties,  almost  every  one  had  gone,  and  her  hair  was  cut.  Do  you  like  it, 
said  Madame  de  Clermont-Tonnerre.  I  do,  said  Gertrude  Stein.  Well,  said 
Madame  de  Clermont-Tonnerre,  if  you  like  it  and  my  daughter  likes  it 
and  she  does  like  it  I  am  satisfied.  That  night  Gertrude  Stein  said  to 
me,  I  guess  I  will  have  to  too.  Cut  it  off  she  said  and  I  did. 

I  was  still  cutting  the  next  evening,  I  had  been  cutting  a  little  more 
all  day  and  by  this  time  it  was  only  a  cap  of  hair  when  Sherwood  Ander- 
son came  in.  Well,  how  do  you  like  it,  said  I  rather  fearfully.  I  like  it, 
he  said,  it  makes  her  look  like  a  monk. 

As  I  have  said,  Picasso  seeing  it,  was  for  a  moment  angry  and  said, 
and  my  portrait,  but  very  soon  added,  after  all  it  is  all  there. 

We  now  had  our  country  house,  the  one  we  had  only  seen  across  the 
valley  and  just  before  leaving  we  found  the  white  poodle,  Basket.  He 
was  a  little  puppy  in  a  little  neighbourhood  dog-show  and  he  had  blue 
eyes,  a  pink  nose  and  white  hair  and  he  jumped  up  into  Gertrude  Stein's 
arms.  A  new  puppy  and  a  new  ford  we  went  off  to  our  new  house  and 
we  were  thoroughly  pleased  with  all  three.  Basket  although  now  he  is 
a  large  unwieldy  poodle,  still  will  get  up  on  Gertrude  Stein's  lap  and  stay 
there.  She  says  that  listening  to  the  rhythm  of  his  water  drinking  made 
her  recognise  the  difference  between  sentences  and  paragraphs,  that  para- 
graphs are  emotional  and  that  sentences  are  not. 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  205 

Bernard  Fay  came  and  stayed  with  us  that  summer.  Gertrude  Stein 
and  he  talked  out  in  the  garden  about  everything,  about  life,  and  Amer- 
ica, and  themselves  and  friendship.  They  then  cemented  the  friendship 
that  is  one  of  the  four  permanent  friendships  of  Gertrude  Stein's  life. 
He  even  tolerated  Basket  for  Gertrude  Stein's  sake.  Lately  Picabia  has 
given  us  a  tiny  mexican  dog,  we  call  Byron.  Bernard  Fay  likes  Byron  for 
Byron's  own  sake.  Gertrude  Stein  teases  him  and  says  naturally  he  likes 
Byron  best  because  Byron  is  an  american  while  just  as  naturally  she  likes 
Basket  best  because  Basket  is  a  frenchman. 

Bilignin  brings  me  to  a  new  old  acquaintance.  One  day  Gertrude  Stein 
came  home  from  a  walk  to  the  bank  and  bringing  out  a  card  from  her 
pocket  said,  we  are  lunching  to-morrow  with  the  Bromfields.  Way  back 
in  the  Hemingway  days  Gertrude  Stein  had  met  Bromfield  and  his  wife 
and  then  from  time  to  time  there  had  been  a  slight  acquaintance,  there 
had  even  been  a  slight  acquaintance  with  Bromfield's  sister,  and  now 
suddenly  we  were  lunching  with  the  Bromfields.  Why,  I  asked,  because 
answered  Gertrude  Stein  quite  radiant,  he  knows  all  about  gardens. 

We  lunched  with  the  Bromfields  and  he  does  know  all  about  gardens 
and  all  about  flowers  and  all  about  soils.  Gertrude  Stein  and  he  first  liked 
each  other  as  gardeners,  then  they  liked  each  other  as  americans  and  then 
they  liked  each  other  as  writers.  Gertrude  Stein  says  of  him  that  he  is 
as  american  as  Janet  Scudder,  as  american  as  a  doughboy,  but  not  as 
solemn. 

One  day  the  Jolases  brought  Furman  the  publisher  to  the  house.  He 
as  have  been  many  publishers  was  enthusiastic  and  enthusiastic  about 
The  Making  of  Americans.  But  it  is  terribly  long,  it's  a  thousand  pages, 
said  Gertrude  Stein.  Well,  can't  it  be  cut  down,  he  said  to  about  four 
hundred.  Yes,  said  Gertrude  Stein,  perhaps.  Well  cut  it  down  and  I  will 
publish  it,  said  Furman. 

Gertrude  Stein  thought  about  it  and  then  did  it.  She  spent  a  part  of 
the  summer  over  it  and  Bradley  as  well  as  she  and  myself  thought  it 
alright. 

In  the  meantime  Gertrude  Stein  had  told  Elliot  Paul  about  the  propo- 
sition. It's  alright  when  he  is  over  here,  said  Elliot  Paul,  but  when  he 
gets  back  the  boys  won't  let  him.  Who  the  boys  are  I  do  not  know  but 
they  certainly  did  not  let  him.  Elliot  Paul  was  right.  In  spite  of  the  efforts 
of  Robert  Coates  and  Bradley  nothing  happened. 

In  the  meantime  Gertrude  Stein's  reputation  among  the  french 


206  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

writers  and  readers  was  steadily  growing.  The  translation  of  the  frag- 
ments of  the  Making  of  Americans,  and  of  the  Ten  Portraits  interested 
them.  It  was  at  this  time  that  Bernard  Fay  wrote  his  article  about  her 
work  printed  in  the  Revue  Europeenne.  They  also  printed  the  only  thing 
she  has  ever  written  in  french  a  little  film  about  the  dog  Basket. 

They  were  very  interested  in  her  later  work  as  well  as  her  earlier  work. 
Marcel  Brion  wrote  a  serious  criticism  of  her  work  in  Echange,  com- 
paring her  work  to  Bach.  Since  then,  in  Les  Nouvelles  Litteraires,  he  has 
written  of  each  of  her  books  as  they  come  out.  He  was  particularly  im- 
pressed by  How  To  Write. 

About  this  time  too  Bernard  Fay  was  translating  a  fragment  of 
Melanctha  from  Three  Lives  for  the  volume  of  Ten  American  Novelists, 
this  to  be  introduced  by  his  article  printed  in  the  Revue  Europeenne. 
He  came  to  the  house  one  afternoon  and  read  his  translation  of 
Melanctha  aloud  to  us.  Madame  de  Clermont-Tonnerre  was  there  and 
she  was  very  impressed  by  his  translation. 

One  day  not  long  after  she  asked  to  come  to  the  house  as  she  wished 
to  talk  to  Gertrude  Stein.  She  came  and  she  said,  the  time  has  now  come 
when  you  must  be  made  known  to  a  larger  public.  I  myself  believe  in 
a  larger  public.  Gertrude  Stein  too  believes  in  a  larger  public  but  the  way 
has  always  been  barred.  No,  said  Madame  de  Clermont-Tonnerre,  the 
way  can  be  opened.  Let  us  think. 

She  said  it  must  come  from  the  translation  of  a  big  book,  an  important 
book.  Gertrude  Stein  suggested  the  Making  of  Americans  and  told  her 
how  it  had  been  prepared  for  an  American  publisher  to  make  about  four 
hundred  pages.  That  will  do  exactly,  she  said.  And  went  away. 

Finally  and  not  after  much  delay,  Monsieur  Bouteleau  of  Stock  saw 
Gertrude  Stein  and  he  decided  to  publish  the  book.  There  was  some  diffi- 
culty about  finding  a  translator,  but  finally  that  was  arranged.  Bernard 
Fay  aided  by  the  Baronne  Seilliere  undertook  the  translation,  and  it  is  this 
translation  which  is  to  appear  this  spring,  and  that  this  summer  made 
Gertrude  Stein  say,  I  knew  it  was  a  wonderful  book  in  english,  but  it  is 
even,  well,  I  cannot  say  almost  really  more  wonderful  but  just  as  won- 
derful in  french. 

Last  autumn  the  day  we  came  back  to  Paris  from  Bilignin  I  was  as 
usual  very  busy  with  a  number  of  things  and  Gertrude  Stein  went  out 
to  buy  some  nails  at  the  bazaar  of  the  rue  de  Rennes.  There  she  met 


AFTER  THE  WAR-1919-1932  207 

Guevara,  a  Chilean  painter  and  his  wife.  They  are  our  neighbours,  and 
they  said,  come  to  tea  to-morrow.  Gertrude  Stein  said,  but  we  are  just 
home,  wait  a  bit.  Do  come,  said  Meraude  Guevara.  And  then  added, 
there  will  be  some  one  there  you  will  like  to  see.  Who  is  it,  said  Gertrude 
Stein  with  a  never  failing  curiosity.  Sir  Francis  Rose,  they  said.  Alright, 
we'll  come,  said  Gertrude  Stein.  By  this  time  she  no  longer  objected 
to  meeting  Francis  Rose.  We  met  then  and  he  of  course  immediately 
came  back  to  the  house  with  her.  He  was,  as  may  be  imagined,  quite 
pink  with  emotion.  And  what,  said  he,  did  Picasso  say  when  he  saw  my 
paintings.  When  he  first  saw  them,  Gertrude  Stein  answered,  he  said, 
at  least  they  are  less  betes  than  the  others.  And  since,  he  asked.  And  since 
he  always  goes  into  the  corner  and  turns  the  canvas  over  to  look  at  them 
but  he  says  nothing. 

Since  then  we  have  seen  a  great  deal  of  Francis  Rose  but  Gertrude 
Stein  has  not  lost  interest  in  the  pictures.  He  has  this  summer  painted 
the  house  from  across  the  valley  where  we  first  saw  it  and  the  waterfall 
celebrated  in  Lucy  Church  Amiably.  He  has  also  painted  her  portrait. 
He  likes  it  and  I  like  it  but  she  is  not  sure  whether  she  does,  but  as  she 
has  just  said,  perhaps  she  does.  We  had  a  pleasant  time  this  summer, 
Bernard  Fay  and  Francis  Rose  both  charming  guests. 

A  young  man  who  first  made  Gertrude  Stein's  acquaintance  by  writ- 
ing engaging  letters  from  America  is  Paul  Frederick  Bowles.  Gertrude 
Stein  says  of  him  that  he  is  delightful  and  sensible  in  summer  but  neither 
delightful  nor  sensible  in  the  winter.  Aaron  Copeland  came  to  see  us  with 
Bowles  in  the  summer  and  Gertrude  Stein  liked  him  immensely.  Bowles 
told  Gertrude  Stein  and  it  pleased  her  that  Copeland  said  threateningly 
to  him  when  as  usual  in  the  winter  he  was  neither  delightful  nor  sen- 
sible, if  you  do  not  work  now  when  you  are  twenty  when  you  are  thirty, 
nobody  will  love  you. 

For  some  time  now  many  people,  and  publishers,  have  been  asking 
Gertrude  Stein  to  write  her  autobiography  and  she  had  always  replied, 
not  possibly. 

She  began  to  tease  me  and  say  that  I  should  write  my  autobiography. 
Just  think,  she  would  say,  what  a  lot  of  money  you  would  make.  She 
then  began  to  invent  titles  for  my  autobiography.  My  Life  With  The 
Great,  Wives  of  Geniuses  I  Have  Sat  With,  My  Twenty-five  Years  With 
Gertrude  Stein. 


208  THE  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  OF  ALICE  B.  TOKLAS 

Then  she  began  to  get  serious  and  say,  but  really  seriously  you  ought 
to  write  your  autobiography.  Finally  I  promised  that  if  during  the  sum- 
mer I  could  find  time  I  would  write  my  autobiography. 

When  Ford  Madox  Ford  was  editing  the  Transatlantic  Review  he 
once  said  to  Gertrude  Stein,  I  am  a  pretty  good  writer  and  a  pretty  good 
editor  and  a  pretty  good  business  man  but  I  find  it  very  difficult  to  be 
all  three  at  once. 

I  am  a  pretty  good  housekeeper  and  a  pretty  good  gardener  and  a 
pretty  good  needlewoman  and  a  pretty  good  secretary  and  a  pretty  good 
editor  and  a  pretty  good  vet  for  dogs  and  I  have  to  do  them  all  at  once 
and  I  found  it  difficult  to  add  being  a  pretty  good  author. 

About  six  weeks  ago  Gertrude  Stein  said,  it^does  not  look  to  me  as  if 
you  were  ever  going  to  write  that  autobiography.  You  know  what  I  am 
going  to  do.  I  am  going  to  write  it  for  you,  I  am  going  to  write  it  as 
simply  as  Defoe  did  the  autobiography  of  Robinson  Crusoe.  And  she 
has  and  this  is  it. 


THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 


The  Making  of  Americans 


This  is  one  of  the  LECTURES  IN  AMERICA  delivered  by  Miss  Stein  dur- 
ing the  season  1934-35  an^  published  by  Random  House  in  79^5.  The 
quotations  from  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  in  the  text  are  from  the 
abbreviated  Harcourt,  Brace  and  Co.  edition.  . 


I  am  going  to  read  what  I  have  written  to  read,  because  in  a  general  way 
it  is  easier  even  if  it  is  not  better  and  in  a  general  way  it  is  better  even  if 
it  is  not  easier  to  read  what  has  been  written  than  to  say  what  has  not 
been  written.  Any  way  that  is  one  way  to  feel  about  it. 

And  I  want  to  tell  you  about  the  gradual  way  of  making  The  Making 
of  Americans.  I  made  it  gradually  and  it  took  me  almost  three  years  to 
make  it,  but  that  is  not  what  I  mean  by  gradual.  What  I  mean  by 
gradual  is  the  way  the  preparation  was  made  inside  of  me.  Although 
as  I  tell  it  it  will  sound  historical,  it  really  is  not  historical  as  I  still  very 
much  remember  it.  I  do  remember  it.  That  is  I  can  remember  it.  And 
if  you  can  remember,  it  may  be  history  but  it  is  not  historical. 

To  begin  with,  I  seem  always  to  be  doing  the  talking  when  I  am 
anywhere  but  in  spite  of  that  I  do  listen.  I  always  listen.  I  always  have 
listened.  I  always  have  listened  to  the  way  everybody  has  to  tell  what  they 
have  to  say.  In  other  words  I  always  have  listened  in  my  way  of  listening 
until  they  have  told  me  and  told  me  until  I  really  know  it,  that  is  know 
what  they  are. 

I  always  as  I  admit  seem  to  be  talking  but  talking  can  be  a  way  of 
listening  that  is  if  one  has  the  profound  need  of  hearing  and  seeing  what 
every  one  is  telling. 

And  I  began  very  early  in  life  to  talk  all  the  time  and  to  listen  all  the 
time.  At  least  that  is  the  way  I  feel  about  it. 

I  cannot  remember  not  talking  all  the  time  and  all  the  same  feeling 
that  while  I  was  talking  while  I  was  seeing  that  I  was  not  only  hearing 
but  seeing  while  I  was  talking  and  that  at  the  same  time  the  relation 
between  myself  knowing  I  was  talking  and  those  to  whom  I  was  talk- 
ing and  incidentally  to  whom  I  was  listening  were  coming  to  tell  me 
and  tell  me  in  their  way  everything  that  made  them. 

Those  of  you  who  have  read  The  Making  of  Americans  I  think  will 
very  certainly  understand. 

211 


212  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

When  I  was  young  and  I  am  talking  of  a  period  even  before  I  went 
to  college  part  of  this  talking  consisted  in  a  desire  not  only  to  hear  what 
each  one  was  saying  in  every  way  everybody  has  of  saying  it  but  also 
then  of  helping  to  change  them  and  to  help  them  change  themselves. 

I  was  very  full  of  convictions  in  those  days  and  I  at  that  time  thought 
that  the  passion  I  had  for  finding  out  by  talking  and  listening  just  how 
everybody  was  always  telling  everything  that  was  inside  them  that  made 
them  that  one,  that  this  passion  for  knowing  the  basis  of  existence  in 
each  one  was  in  me  to  help  them  change  themselves  to  become  what  they 
should  become.  The  changing  should  of  course  be  dependent  upon  my 
ideas  and  theirs  theirs  as  much  as  mine  at  that  time. 

And  so  in  those  early  days  I  wanted  to  know  what  was  inside  each 
one  which  made  them  that  one  and  I  was  deeply  convinced  that  I  needed 
this  to  help  them  change  something. 

Then  I  went  to  college  and  there  for  a  little  while  I  was  tremendously 
occupied  with  finding  out  what  was  inside  myself  to  make  me  what  I 
was.  I  think  that  does  happen  to  one  at  that  time.  It  had  been  happening 
before  going  to  college  but  going  to  college  made  it  more  lively.  And 
being  so  occupied  with  what  made  me  myself  inside  me,  made  me  per- 
haps not  stop  talking  but  for  awhile  it  made  me  stop  listening. 

At  any  rate  that  is  the  way  it  seems  to  me  now  looking  back  at  it. 

While  I  was  at  college  and  doing  philosophy  and  psychology  I  became 
more  and  more  interested  in  my  own  mental  and  physical  processes 
and  less  in  that  of  others  and  all  I  then  was  learning  of  what  made 
people  what  they  were  came  to  me  by  experience  and  not  by  talking  and 
listening. 

Then  as  I  say  I  became  more  interested  in  psychology,  and  one  of  the 
things  I  did  was  testing  reactions  of  the  average  college  student  in  a 
state  of  normal  activity  and  in  the  state  of  fatigue  induced  by  their  ex- 
aminations. I  was  supposed  to  be  interested  in  their  reactions  but  soon 
I  found  that  I  was  not  but  instead  that  I  was  enormously  interested  in 
the  types  of  their  characters  that  is  what  I  even  then  thought  of  as  the 
bottom  nature  of  them,  and  when  in  May  1898  I  wrote  my  half  of  the 
report  of  these  experiments  I  expressed  these  results  as  follows : 

In  these  descriptions  it  will  be  readily  observed  that  habits  of  atten- 
tion are  reflexes  of  the  complete  character  of  the  individual. 

Then  that  was  over  and  I  went  to  the  medical  school  where  I  was 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  213 

bored  and  where  once  more  myself  and  my  experiences  were  more  ac- 
tively interesting  me  than  the  life  inside  of  others. 

But  then  after  that  once  more  I  began  to  listen,  I  had  left  the  medical 
school  and  I  had  for  the  moment  nothing  to  do  but  talk  and  look  and 
listen,  and  I  did  this  tremendously. 

I  then  began  again  to  think  about  the  bottom  nature  in  people,  I  began 
to  get  enormously  interested  in  hearing  how  everybody  said  the  same 
thing  over  and  over  again  with  infinite  variations  but  over  and  over  again 
until  finally  if  you  listened  with  great  intensity  you  could  hear  it  rise 
and  fall  and  tell  all  that  that  there  was  inside  them,  not  so  much  by  the 
actual  words  they  said  or  the  thoughts  they  had  but  the  movement  of 
their  thoughts  and  words  endlessly  the  same  and  endlessly  different. 

Many  things  then  come  out  in  the  repeating  that  make  a  history 
of  each  one  for  any  one  who  always  listens  to  them.  Many  things 
come  out  of  each  one  and  as  one  listens  to  them  listens  to  all  the 
repeating  in  them,  always  this  comes  to  be  clear  about  them,  the 
history  of  them  of  the  bottom  nature  in  them,  the  nature  or  na- 
tures mixed  up  in  them  to  make  the  whole  of  them  in  anyway  it 
mixes  up  in  them.  Sometimes  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  every 
one. 

When  you  come  to  feel  the  whole  of  anyone  from  the  beginning 
to  the  ending,  all  the  kind  of  repeating  there  is  in  them,  the  dif- 
ferent ways  at  different  times  repeating  comes  out  of  them,  all  the 
kinds  of  things  and  mixtures  in  each  one,  anyone  can  see  then  by 
looking  hard  at  any  one  living  near  them  that  a  history  of  every 
one  must  be  a  long  one.  A  history  of  any  one  must  be  a  long  one, 
slowly  it  comes  out  from  them  from  their  beginning  to  their  end- 
ing, slowly  you  can  see  it  in  them  the  nature  and  the  mixtures  in 
them,  slowly  everything  comes  out  from  each  one  in  the  kind  of 
repeating  each  one  does  in  the  different  parts  and  kinds  of  living 
they  have  in  them,  slowly  then  the  history  of  them  comes  out  from 
them,  slowly  then  any  one  who  looks  well  at  any  one  will  have  the 
history  of  the  whole  of  that  one.  Slowly  the  history  of  each  one  comes 
out  of  each  one.  Sometimes  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  every 
one.  Mostly  every  history  will  be  a  long  one.  Slowly  it  comes  out 
of  each  one,  slowly  any  one  who  looks  at  them  gets  the  history  of 


214  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

each  part  of  the  living  of  any  one  in  the  history  of  the  whole  of 
each  one  that  sometime  there  will  be  of  every  one.* 

Repeating  then  is  in  every  one,  in  every  one  their  being  and  their 
feeling  and  their  way  of  realizing  everything  and  every  one  comes 
out  of  them  in  repeating.  More  and  more  then  every  one  comes  to 
be  clear  to  some  one. 

Slowly  every  one  in  continuous  repeating,  to  their  minutest  varia- 
tion, comes  to  be  clearer  to  some  one.  Every  one  who  ever  was  or 
is  or  will  be  living  sometimes  will  be  clearly  realized  by  some  one. 
Sometime  there  will  be  an  ordered  history  of  every  one.  Slowly 
every  kind  of  one  comes  into  ordered  recognition.  More  and  more 
then  it  is  wonderful  in  living  the  subtle  variations  coming  clear 
into  ordered  recognition,  coming  to  make  every  one  a  part  of  some 
kind  of  them,  some  kind  of  men  and  women.  Repeating  then  is  in 
every  one,  every  one  then  comes  sometimes  to  be  clearer  to  some  one, 
sometime  there  will  be  then  an  orderly  history  of  every  one  who  ever 
was  or  is  or  will  be  living.f 

Then  I  became  very  interested  in  resemblances,  in  resemblances  and 
slight  differences  between  people.  I  began  to  make  charts  of  all  the  people 
I  had  ever  known  or  seen,  or  met  or  remembered. 

Every  one  is  always  busy  with  it,  no  one  of  them  then  ever  want 
to  know  it  that  every  one  looks  like  some  one  else  and  they  see  it 
mostly  every  one  dislikes  to  hear  it.  It  is  very  important  to  me  to  al- 
ways know  it,  to  always  see  it  which  one  looks  like  others  and  to 
tell  it. — The  Making  of  Americans,  page  211.  I  write  for  myself 
and  strangers,  I  do  this  for  my  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of  those 
who  know  I  know  it  that  they  look  like  other  ones,  that  they  are 
separate  and  yet  always  repeated.  There  are  some  who  like  it  that 
I  know  they  are  like  many  others  and  repeat  it,  there  are  many  who 
never  can  really  like  it. 

Every  one  is  one  inside  them,  every  one  reminds  some  one  of 
some  other  one  who  is  or  was  or  will  be  living.  Every  one  has  it  to 
say  of  each  one  he  is  like  such  a  one  I  see  it  in  him,  every  one  has  it 
to  say  of  each  one  she  is  like  some  one  else  I  can  tell  by  remember- 

*  The  Making  of  Americans  (Harcourt,  Brace  &  Co.),  Page  128. 
t  The  Making  of  Americans. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  215 

ing.  So  it  goes  on  always  in  living,  every  one  is  always  remembering 
some  one  who  is  resembling  to  the  one  at  whom  they  are  then  look- 
ing. So  they  go  on  repeating,  every  one  is  themselves  inside  them 
and  every  one  is  resembling  to  others  and  that  is  always  interesting.* 

I  began  to  see  that  as  I  saw  when  I  saw  so  many  students  at  college 
that  all  this  was  gradually  taking  form.  I  began  to  get  very  excited  about 
it.  I  began  to  be  sure  that  if  I  could  only  go  on  long  enough  and  talk 
and  hear  and  look  and  see  and  feel  enough  and  long  enough  I  could 
finally  describe  really  describe  every  kind  of  human  being  that  ever  was 
or  is  or  would  be  living. 

I  got  very  wrapped  up  in  all  this.  And  I  began  writing  The  Making 
of  Americans. 

Let  me  read  you  some  passages  to  show  you  how  passionately  and  how 
desperately  I  felt  about  all  this. 

I  am  altogether  a  discouraged  one.  I  am  just  now  altogether  a 
discouraged  one.  I  am  going  on  describing  men  and  women.* 

I  have  been  very  glad  to  have  been  wrong.  It  is  sometimes  a  very 
hard  thing  to  win  myself  to  having  been  wrong  about  something. 
I  do  a  great  deal  of  suffering.! 

I  was  sure  that  in  a  kind  of  a  way  the  enigma  of  the  universe  could 
in  this  way  be  solved.  That  after  all  description  is  explanation,  and  if 
I  went  on  and  on  and  on  enough  I  could  describe  every  individual 
human  being  that  could  possibly  exist.  I  did  proceed  to  do  as  much  as  I 
could. 

Some  time  then  there  will  be  every  kind  of  a  history  of  every 
one  who  ever  can  or  is  or  was  or  will  be  living.  Some  time  then 
there  will  be  a  history  of  every  one  from  their  beginning  to  their 
ending.  Sometime  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  all  of  them,  of 
every  kind  of  them,  of  every  one,  of  every  bit  of  living  they  ever 
have  in  them,  of  them  when  there  is  never  more  than  a  beginning 
to  them,  of  every  kind  of  them,  of  every  one  when  there  is  very  little 

*  The  Making  of  Americans,  Page  212. 

*  The  Malting  of  Americans,  Page  308. 
t  The  Making  of  Americans,  Page  310. 


216  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

beginning  and  then  there  is  an  ending,  there  will  then  sometime  be 
a  history  of  every  one  there  will  be  a  history  of  everything  that  ever 
was  or  is  or  will  be  them,  of  everything  that  was  or  is  or  will  be  all 
of  any  one  or  all  of  all  of  them.  Sometime  then  there  will  be  a  history 
of  every  one,  of  everything  or  anything  that  is  all  them  or  any  part 
of  them  and  sometime  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  how  anything 
or  everything  comes  out  from  every  one,  comes  out  from  every  one 
or  any  one  from  the  beginning  to  the  ending  of  the  being  in  them. 
Sometime  then  there  must  be  a  history  of  every  one  who  ever  was 
or  is  or  will  be  living.  As  one  sees  every  one  in  their  living,  in  their 
loving,  sitting,  eating,  drinking,  sleeping,  walking,  working,  think- 
ing, laughing,  as  any  one  sees  all  of  them  from  their  beginning  to 
their  ending,  sees  them  when  they  are  little  babies  or  children  or 
young  grown  men  and  women  or  growing  older  men  and  women 
or  old  men  and  women  then  one  knows  it  in  them  that  sometime 
there  will  be  a  history  of  all  of  them,  that  sometime  all  of  them  will 
have  the  last  touch  of  being,  a  history  of  them  can  give  to  them, 
sometime  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  each  one,  of  all  the  kinds  of 
them,  of  all  the  ways  any  one  can  know  them,  of  all  the  ways  each 
one  is  inside  her  or  inside  him,  of  all  the  ways  anything  of  them 
comes  out  from  them.  Sometime  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  every 
one  and  so  then  every  one  will  have  in  them  the  last  touch  of  being  a 
history  of  any  one  can  give  to  them.* 

This  is  then  a  beginning  of  the  way  of  knowing  everything  in 
every  one,  of  knowing  the  complete  history  of  each  one  who  ever 
is  or  was  or  will  be  living.  This  is  then  a  little  description  of  the 
winning  of  so  much  wisdom.f 

Of  course  all  the  time  things  were  happening  that  is  in  respect  to  my 
hearing  and  seeing  and  feeling.  I  found  that  as  often  as  I  thought  and 
had  every  reason  to  be  certain  that  I  had  included  everything  in  my 
knowledge  of  any  one  something  else  would  turn  up  that  had  to  be  in- 
cluded. I  did  not  with  this  get  at  all  discouraged  I  only  became  more 
and  more  interested.  And  I  may  say  that  I  am  still  more  and  more  inter- 
ested I  find  as  many  things  to  be  added  now  as  ever  and  that  does  make 
it  eternally  interesting.  So  I  found  myself  getting  deeper  and  deeper  into 

*  The  Making  of  Americans,  Page  124. 
t  The  Making  of  Americans,  Page  217. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  217 

the  idea  of  describing  really  describing  every  individual  that  could  exist. 

While  I  was  doing  all  this  all  unconsciously  at  the  same  time  a  mat- 
ter of  tenses  and  sentences  came  to  fascinate  me. 

While  I  was  listening  and  hearing  and  feeling  the  rhythm  of  each 
human  being  I  gradually  began  to  feel  the  difficulty  of  putting  it  down. 
Types  of  people  I  could  put  down  but  a  whole  human  being  felt  at  one 
and  the  same  time,  in  other  words  while  in  the  act  of  feeling  that  person 
was  very  difficult  to  put  into  words. 

And  so  about  the  middle  of  The  Making  of  Americans  I  became  very 
consciously  obsessed  by  this  very  definite  problem. 

It  happens  very  often  that  a  man  has  it  in  him,  that  a  man  does 
something,  that  he  does  it  very  often  that  he  does  many  things, 
when  he  is  a  young  man  when  he  is  an  old  man,  when  he  is  an 
older  man.  One  of  such  of  these  kind  of  them  had  a  little  boy  and 
this  one,  the  little  son  wanted  to  make  a  collection  of  butterflies  and 
beetles  and  it  was  all  exciting  to  him  and  it  was  all  arranged  then 
and  then  the  father  said  to  the  son  you  are  certain  this  is  not  a  cruel 
thing  that  you  are  wanting  to  be  doing,  killing  things  to  make  col- 
lections of  them,  and  the  son  was  very  disturbed  then  and  they  talked 
about  it  together  the  two  of  them  and  more  and  more  they  talked 
about  it  then  and  then  at  last  the  boy  was  convinced  it  was  a  cruel 
thing  and  he  said  he  would  not  do  it  and  his  father  said  the  little 
boy  was  a  noble  boy  to  give  up  pleasure  when  it  was  a  cruel  one. 
The  boy  went  to  bed  then  and  then  the  father  when  he  got  up  in 
the  early  morning  saw  a  wonderfully  beautiful  moth  in  the  room 
an<J  he  caught  him  and  he  killed  him  and  he  pinned  him  and  he 
woke  up  his  son  then  and  showed  it  to  him  and  he  said  to  him  see 
what  a  good  father  I  am  to  have  caught  and  Hlled  this  one,  the  boy 
was  all  mixed  up  inside  him  and  then  he  said  lie  would  go  on  with 
his  collecting  and  that  was  all  there  was  then  of  discussing  and  this 
is  a  little  description  of  something  that  happened  once  and  it  is  very 
interesting.* 

And  this  brings  us  to  the  question  of  grammar.  So  let  me  talk  a  little 
about  that. 

You  know  by  this  time  that  although  I  do  listen  I  do  see  I  do  hear 
I  do  feel  that  I  do  talk. 

*  The  Malting  of  Americans,  Page  284. 


218  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

English  grammar  is  interesting  because  it  is  so  simple.  Once  you 
really  know  how  to  diagram  a  sentence  really  know  it,  you  know  prac- 
tically all  you  have  to  know  about  English  grammar.  In  short  any  child 
thirteen  years  old  properly  taught  can  by  that  time  have  learned  every- 
thing there  is  to  learn  about  English  grammar.  So  why  make  a  fuss 
about  it.  However  one  does. 

It  is  this  that  makes  the  English  language  such  a  vital  language  that 
the  grammar  of  it  is  so  simple  and  that  one  does  make  a  fuss  about  it. 

When  I  was  up  against  the  difficulty  of  putting  down  the  complete 
conception  that  I  had  of  an  individual,  the  complete  rhythm  of  a  per- 
sonality that  I  had  gradually  acquired  by  listening  seeing  feeling  and 
experience,  I  was  faced  by  the  trouble  that  I  had  acquired  all  this  knowl- 
edge gradually  but  when  I  had  it  I  had  it  completely  at  one  time.  Now 
that  may  never  have  been  a  trouble  to  you  but  it  was  a  terrible  trouble 
to  me.  And  a  great  deal  of  The  Making  of  Americans  was  a  struggle 
to  do  this  thing,  to  make  a  whole  present  of  something  that  it  had  taken 
a  great  deal  of  time  to  find  out,  but  it  was  a  whole  there  then  within 
me  and  as  such  it  had  to  be  said. 

That  then  and  ever  since  has  been  a  great  deal  of  my  work  and  it  is 
that  which  has  made  me  try  so  many  ways  to  tell  my  story. 

In  The  Making  of  Americans  I  tried  it  in  a  variety  of  ways.  And  my 
sentences  grew  longer  and  longer,  my  imaginary  dependent  clauses  were 
constantly  being  dropped  out,  I  struggled  with  relations  between  they 
them  and  then,  I  began  with  a  relation  between  tenses  that  sometimes 
almost  seemed  to  do  it.  And  I  went  on  and  on  and  then  one  day  after 
I  had  written  a  thousand  pages,  this  was  in  1908  I  just  did  not  go  on 
any  more.  % 

I  did  however  immediately  begin  again.  I  began  A  Long  Gay  Book, 
that  was  going  to  be  even  longer  than  The  Making  of  Americans  and 
was  going  to  be  even  more  complicated,  but  then  something  happened 
in  me  and  I  said  in  Composition  As  Explanation,  so  then  naturally  it 
was  natural  that  one  thing  an  enormously  long  thing  was  not  every- 
thing an  enormously  short  thing  was  also  not  everything  nor  was  it  all 
of  it  a  continuous  present  thing  nor  was  it  always  and  always  beginning 
again. 

And  so  this  is  The  Making  of  Americans.  A  book  one  thousand  pages 
long,  and  I  worked  over  it  three  years,  and  I  hope  this  makes  it  a  little 
more  understandable  to  you. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  219 

As  I  say  I  began  A  Long  Gay  Book  and  it  was  to  be  even  longer  than 
The  Making  of  Americans  and  it  was  to  describe  not  only  every  pos- 
sible kind  of  a  human  being,  but  every  possible  kind  of  pairs  of  human 
beings  and  every  possible  threes  and  fours  and  fives  of  human  beings 
and  every  possible  kind  of  crowds  of  human  beings.  And  I  was  going 
to  do  it  as  A  Long  Gay  Book  and  at  the  same  time  I  began  several 
shorter  books  which  were  to  illustrate  the  Long  Gay  Book,  one  called 
Many  Many  Women  another  Five,  another  Two  and  another  G.  M.  P., 
Matisse  Picasso  and  Gertrude  Stein,  but  the  chief  book  was  to  be  the 
Long  Gay  Book  and  that  was  in  a  kind  of  way  to  go  on  and  to  keep 
going  on  and  to  go  on  before  and  it  began  in  this  way. 

When  they  are  very  little  just  only  a  baby  you  can  never  tell 
which  one  is  to  be  a  lady. 

There  are  some  when  they  feel  it  inside  them  that  it  has  been  with 
them  that  there  was  once  so  very  little  of  them,  that  they  were  a 
baby,  helpless  and  no  conscious  feeling  in  them,  that  they  knew 
nothing  then  when  they  were  kissed  and  dandled  and  fixed  by 
others  who  knew  them  when  they  could  know  nothing  inside  them 
or  around  them,  some  get  from  all  this  that  once  surely  happened 
to  them  to  that  which  was  then  every  bit  that  was  then  them,  there 
are  some  when  they  feel  it  later  inside  them  that  they  were  such 
once  and  that  was  all  that  there  was  then  of  them,  there  are  some 
who  have  from  such  a  knowing  an  uncertain  curious  kind  of  feeling 
in  them  that  their  having  been  so  little  once  and  knowing  nothing 
makes  it  all  a  broken  world  for  them  that  they  have  inside  them, 
kills  for  them  the  everlasting  feeling:  and  they  spend  their  life  in 
many  ways,  and  always  they  are  trying  to  make  for  themselves  a 
new  everlasting  feeling. 

One  way  perhaps  of  winning  is  to  make  a  little  one  to  come 
through  them,  little  like  the  baby  that  once  was  all  them  and  lost 
them  their  everlasting  feeling.  Some  can  win  from  just  the  feeling, 
the  little  one  need  not  come,  to  give  it  to  them. 

And  so  always  there  is  beginning  and  to  some  then  a  losing  of 
the  everlasting  feeling.  Then  they  make  a  baby  to  make  for  them- 
selves a  new  beginning  and  so  win  for  themselves  a  new  everlasting 
feeling.* 

*  A  Long  Gay  Book.  (Plain  Edition),  Random  House,  Page  13. 


220  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

I  knew  while  I  was  writing  The  Making  of  Americans  that  it  was 
possible  to  describe  every  kind  there  is  of  men  and  women. 

I  began  to  wonder  if  it  was  possible  to  describe  the  way  every  possible 
kind  of  human  being  acted  and  felt  in  relation  with  any  other  kind  of 
human  being  and  I  thought  if  this  could  be  done  it  would  make  A  Long 
Gay  Book.  It  is  naturally  gayer  describing  what  any  one  feels  acts  and 
does  in  relation  to  any  other  one  than  to  describe  what  they  just  are 
what  they  are  inside  them. 

And  as  I  naturally  found  it  livelier,  I  myself  was  becoming  livelier 
just  then.  One  does  you  know,  when  one  has  come  to  the  conclusion 
that  what  is  inside  every  one  is  not  all  there  is  of  any  one.  I  was,  there 
is  no  doubt  about  it,  I  was  coming  to  be  livelier  in  relation  to  myself 
inside  me  and  in  relation  to  any  one  inside  in  them.  This  being  livelier 
inside  me  kept  on  increasing  and  so  you  see  it  was  a  natural  thing  that 
as  the  Long  Gay  Book  began,  it  did  not  go  on.  If  it  were  to  be  really 
lively  would  it  go  on.  Does  one  if  one  is  really  lively  and  I  was  really 
very  lively  then  does  one  go  on  and  does  one  if  one  is  really  very  lively 
does  one  content  oneself  with  describing  what  is  going  on  inside  in  one 
and  going  on  inside  in  every  one  in  any  one. 

At  any  rate  what  happened  is  this  and  every  one  reading  these  things, 
A  Long  Gay  Book,  Many  Many  Women  and  G.  M.  P.  will  see,  that  it 
changed,  it  kept  on  changing,  until  at  last  it  led  to  something  entirely 
different  something  very  short  and  lively  to  the  Portrait  of  Mabel  Dodge 
and  the  little  book  called  Tender  Buttons  but  all  that  I  will  talk  about 
later.  To  go  back  to  The  Making  of  Americans  and  A  Long  Gay  Book. 

One  must  not  forget  that  although  life  seems  long  it  is  very  short, 
that  although  civilization  seems  long  it  is  not  so  very  long.  If  you  think 
about  how  many  generations,  granting  that  your  grandfather  to  you 
make  a  hundred  years,  if  you  think  about  that,  it  is  extraordinary  how 
very  short  is  the  history  of  the  world  in  which  we  live,  the  world  which 
is  the  world  where  there  is  a  world  for  us.  It  is  like  the  generations  in 
the  Bible,  they  really  do  not  take  so  very  long.  Now  when  you  are  be- 
ginning realizing  everything,  this  is  a  thing  that  is  not  confusing  but  is 
a  thing  that  as  you  might  say  is  at  one  time  very  long  and  at  the  same 
time  not  at  all  long.  Twenty-five  years  roll  around  so  quickly  and  in 
writing  they  can  do  one  of  two  things,  they  can  either  roll  around  more 
or  they  can  roll  around  less  quickly. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  221 

In  writing  The  Making  of  Americans  they  rolled  around  less  quickly. 
In  writing  A  Long  Gay  Book,  they  did  not  roll  around  at  all,  and  there- 
fore it  did  not  go  on  it  led  to  Tender  Buttons  and  many  other  things. 
It  may  even  have  led  to  war  but  that  is  of  no  importance. 

The  Making  of  Americans  rolled  around  very  slowly,  it  was  only 
three  years  but  they  rolled  around  slowly  and  that  is  inevitable  when 
one  conceives  everything  as  being  there  inside  in  one.  Of  course  every- 
thing is  always  inside  in  one,  that  anybody  knows  but  the  kind  of  a  one 
that  one  is  is  all  inside  in  one  or  it  is  partly  not  all  inside  in  one.  When 
one  is  beginning  to  know  everything,  and  that  happens  as  it  does  hap- 
pen, you  all  know  that,  when  one  is  beginning  to  know  everything 
inside  in  one  description  strengthens  it  being  all  inside  in  one.  That  was 
for  me  the  whole  of  The  Making  of  Americans,  it  was  the  strengthen- 
ing the  prolonging  of  the  existing  of  everything  being  inside  in  one. 
You  may  call  that  being  younger  you  may  not  just  as  you  feel  about  it 
but  what  is  important  about  it  is,  that  if  everything  is  all  inside  in  one 
then  it  takes  longer  to  know  it  than  when  it  is  not  so  completely  inside 
in  one. 

Therefore  it  takes  longer  to  know  everything  when  everything  is  all 
inside  one  than  when  it  is  not.  Call  it  being  young  if  you  like,  or  call  it 
not  including  anything  that  is  not  everything.  It  does  not  make  any 
difference  whether  you  are  young  or  younger  or  older  or  very  much 
older.  That  does  not  make  any  difference  because  after  all  as  I  say 
civilization  is  not  very  old  if  you  think  about  it  by  hundreds  of  years  and 
realize  that  your  grandfather  to  you  can  very  much  more  than  make  a 
hundred  years  if  it  happens  right. 

And  so  I  say  and  I  saw  that  a  complete  description  of  every  kind  of 
human  being  that  ever  could  or  would  be  living  is  not  such  a  very 
extensive  thing  because  after  all  it  can  be  all  contained  inside  in  any  one 
and  finally  it  can  be  done. 

So  then  in  writing  The  Making  of  Americans  it  was  to  me  an  enor- 
mously long  thing  to  do  to  describe  every  one  and  slowly  it  was  not  an 
enormously  long  thing  to  do  to  describe  every  one.  Because  after  all  as 
I  say  civilization  is  not  a  very  long  thing,  twenty-five  years  roll  around 
so  quickly  and  four  times  twenty-five  years  make  a  hundred  years  and 
that  makes  a  grandfather  to  a  granddaughter.  Everybody  is  interested 
when  that  happens  to  any  one,  because  it  makes  it  long  and  it  makes  it 


222  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

short.  And  so  and  this  is  the  thing  that  made  the  change  a  necessary 
change  from  The  Making  of  Americans  to  A  Long  Gay  Book  and  then 
to  Tender  Buttons. 

*  I  will  read  you  some  few  little  things  that  will  show  this  thing.  A  few 
things  out  of  A  Long  Gay  Book  that  show  how  it  changed,  changed 
from  Making  of  Americans  to  Tender  Buttons. 

It  is  a  simple  thing  to  be  quite  certain  that  there  are  kinds  in  men 
and  women.  It  is  a  simple  thing  and  then  not  any  one  has  any  worry- 
ing to  be  doing  about  any  one  being  any  one.  It  is  a  simple  thing  to 
be  quite  certain  that  each  one  is  one  being  a  kind  of  them  and  in 
being  that  kind  of  a  one  is  one  being,  doing,  thmking,  feeling,  re- 
membering and  forgetting,  loving,  disliking,  being  angry,  laughing, 
eating,  drinking,  talking,  sleeping,  waking  like  all  of  them  of  that 
kind  of  them.  There  are  enough  kinds  in  men  and  women  so  that 
any  one  can  be  interested  in  that  thing  that  there  are  kinds  in  men 
and  women.* 

Vrais  says  good  good,  excellent.  Vrais  listens  and  when  he  listens 
he  says  good  good,  excellent.  Vrais  listens  and  he  being  Vrais  when 
he  has  listened  he  says  good  good,  excellent. 

Vrais  listens,  he  being  Vrais,  he  listens. 

Anything  is  two  things.  Vrais  was  nicely  faithful.  He  had  been 
nicely  faithful.  Anything  is  two  things. 

He  had  been  nicely  faithful.  In  being  one  he  was  one  who  had  he 
been  one  continuing  would  not  have  been  one  continuing  being 
nicely  faithful.  He  was  one  continuing,  he  was  not  continuing  to  be 
nicely  faithful.  In  continuing  he  was  being  one  being  the  one  who 
was  saying  good  good,  excellent  but  in  continuing  he  was  needing 
that  he  was  believing  that  he  was  aspiring  to  be  one  continuing  to 
be  able  to  be  saying  good  good,  excellent.  He  had  been  one  saying 
good  good,  excellent.  He  had  been  that  one.* 

If  the  accumulation  of  inexpediency  produces  the  withdrawing  of 
the  afternoon  greeting  then  in  the  evening  there  is  more  preparation 
and  this  will  take  away  the  paper  that  has  been  lying  where  it  could 
be  seen.  All  the  way  that  has  the  aging  of  a  younger  generation  is 
part  of  the  way  that  resembles  anything  that  is  not  disappearing. 

*  A  Long  Gay  Book. — Page  23. 
*A  Long  Gay  Book — pa#e  53. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  223 

It  is  not  alright  as  colors  are  existing  in  being  accommodating.  They 
have  a  way  that  is  identical/}" 

Pardon  the  fretful  autocrat  who  voices  discontent.  Pardon  the  col- 
ored water-color  which  is  burnt.  Pardon  the  intoning  of  the  heavy 
way.  Pardon  the  aristocrat  who  has  not  come  to  stay.  Pardon  the 
abuse  which  was  begun.  Pardon  the  yellow  egg  which  has  run. 
Pardon  nothing  yet,  pardon  what  is  wet,  forget  the  opening  now, 
and  close  the  door  again.$ 

A  private  life  is  the  long  thick  tree  and  the  private  life  is  the  life 
for  me.  A  tree  which  is  thick  is  a  tree  which  is  thick.  A  life  which  is 
private  is  not  what  there  is.  All  the  times  that  come  are  the  times  I 
sing,  all  the  singing  I  sing  are  the  tunes  I  sing.  I  sing  and  I  sing 
and  the  tunes  I  sing  are  what  are  tunes  if  they  come  and  I  sing.  I  sing 
I  sing.* 

Suppose  it  did,  suppose  it  did  with  a  sheet  and  a  shadow  and  a 
silver  set  of  water,  suppose  it  did.f 

When  I  was  working  with  William  James  I  completely  learned  one 
thing,  that  science  is  continuously  busy  with  the  complete  description 
of  something,  with  ultimately  the  complete  description  of  anything  with 
ultimately  the  complete  description  of  everything.  If  this  can  really  be 
done  the  complete  description  of  everything  then  what  else  is  there  to 
do.  We  may  well  say  nothing,  but  and  this  is  the  thing  that  makes  every- 
thing continue  to  be  anything,  that  after  all  what  does  happen  is  that 
as  relatively  few  people  spend  all  their  time  describing  anything  and 
they  stop  and  so  in  the  meantime  as  everything  goes  on  somebody  else 
can  always  commence  and  go  on.  And  so  description  is  really  unending. 
When  I  began  The  Making  of  Americans  I  knew  I  really  did  know 
that  a  complete  description  was  a  possible  thing,  and  certainly  a  com- 
plete description  is  a  possible  thing.  But  as  it  is  a  possible  thing  one  can 
stop  continuing  to  describe  this  everything.  That  is  where  philosophy 
comes  in,  it  begins  when  one  stops  continuing  describing  everything. 

And  so  this  was  the  history  of  the  writing  of  The  Making  of  Amer- 
icans and  why  I  began  A  Long  Gay  Book.  I  said  I  would  go  on  describ- 

t  A  Long  Gay  Bool{ — Page  86. 

%A  Long  Gay  Book, — Page  100. 

*  A  Long  Gay  Bool{ — Page  107. 

^  A  Long  Gay  Book, — Page  114. 


224  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

ing  everything  in  A  Long  Gay  Book,  but  as  inevitably  indeed  really 
one  does  stop  describing  everything  being  at  last  really  convinced  that  a 
description  of  everything  is  possible  it  was  inevitable  that  I  gradually 
•stopped  describing  everything  in  A  Long  Gay  Book. 

Nevertheless  it  would  be  nice  to  really  have  described  every  kind  there 
is  of  men  and  women,  and  it  really  would  not  be  very  hard  to  do  but  it 
would  inevitably  not  be  a  Long  Gay  Book,  but  it  would  be  a  Making  of 
Americans. 

But  I  do  not  want  to  begin  again  or  go  on  with  what  was  begun 
because  after  all  I  know  I  really  do  know  that  it  can  be  done  and  if  it 
can  be  done  why  do  it,  particularly  as  I  say  one  does  know  that  civiliza- 
tion has  after  all  not  existed  such  a  very  long  time  if  you  count  it  by  a 
hundred  years,  and  each  time  there  has  been  civilization  it  has  not 
lasted  such  a  long  time  if  you  count  it  by  a  hundred  years,  which  makes 
a  period  that  can  connect  you  with  some  other  one. 

I  hope  you  like  what  I  say. 

And  so  The  Making  of  Americans  has  been  done.  It  must  be  remem- 
bered that  whether  they  are  Chinamen  or  Americans  there  are  the 
same  kinds  in  men  and  women  and  one  can  describe  all  the  kinds  of 
them.  This  I  might  have  done. 

And  so  then  I  began  The  Long  Gay  Book.  As  soon  as  I  began  the 
Long  Gay  Book  I  knew  inevitably  it  would  not  go  on  to  continue  what 
The  Making  of  Americans  had  begun.  And  why  not.  Because  as  my 
life  was  my  life  inside  me  but  I  was  realizing  beginning  realizing  that 
everything  described  would  not  do  any  more  than  tell  all  I  knew  about 
anything  why  should  I  tell  all  I  knew  about  anything  since  after  all  I 
did  know  all  I  knew  about  anything. 

So  then  I  said  I  would  begin  again.  I  would  not  know  what  I  knew 
about  everything  what  I  knew  about  anything. 

And  so  the  Long  Gay  Book  little  by  little  changed  from  a  description 
of  any  one  of  any  one  and  everything  there  there  was  to  be  known  about 
any  one,  to  what  if  not  was  not  not  to  be  not  known  about  any  one 
about  anything.  And  so  it  was  necessary  to  let  come  what  would  happen 
to  come  because  after  all  knowledge  is  what  you  know  but  what  is 
happening  is  inevitably  what  is  happening  to  come. 

And  so  this  brings  us  to  other  things. 

In  describing  English  literature  I  have  explained  that  the  twentieth 
century  was  the  century  not  of  sentences  as  was  the  eighteenth  not  of 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  225 

phrases  as  was  the  nineteenth  but  of  paragraphs.  And  as  I  explained 
paragraphs  were  inevitable  because  as  the  nineteenth  century  came  to 
its  ending,  phrases  were  no  longer  full  of  any  meaning  and  the  time  had 
come  when  a  whole  thing  was  all  there  was  of  anything.  Series  immedi- 
ately before  and  after  made  everybody  clearly  understand  this  thing. 
And  so  it  was  natural  that  in  writing  The  Making  of  Americans  I  had 
proceeded  to  enlarge  my  paragraphs  so  as  to  include  everything.  What 
else  could  I  do.  In  fact  inevitably  I  made  my  sentences  and  my  para- 
graphs do  the  same  thing,  made  them  be  one  and  the  same  thing.  This 
was  inevitably  because  the  nineteenth  century  having  lived  by  phrases 
really  had  lost  the  feeling  of  sentences,  and  before  this  in  English  litera- 
ture paragraphs  had  never  been  an  end  in  themselves  and  now  in  the 
beginning  of  the  twentieth  century  a  whole  thing,  being  what  was  as- 
sembled from  its  parts  was  a  whole  thing  and  so  it  was  a  paragraph. 
You  will  see  that  in  The  Making  of  Americans  I  did  this  thing,  I  made 
a  paragraph  so  much  a  whole  thing  that  it  included  in  itself  as  a  whole 
thing  a  whole  sentence.  That  makes  something  clear  to  you  does  it  not. 

And  this  is  what  The  Making  of  Americans  was.  Slowly  it  was  not 
enough  to  satisfy  myself  with  a  whole  thing  as  a  paragraph  as  a  whole 
thing  and  I  will  tell  very  much  more  about  how  that  came  about  but 
The  Making  of  Americans  really  carried  it  as  far  as  it  could  be  carried 
so  I  think  the  making  a  whole  paragraph  a  whole  thing. 

Then  at  the  same  time  is  the  question  of  time.  The  assembling  of  a 
thing  to  make  a  whole  thing  and  each  one  of  these  whole  things  is  one 
of  a  series,  but  beside  this  there  is  the  important  thing  and  the  very 
American  thing  that  everybody  knows  who  is  an  American  just  how 
many  seconds  minutes  or  hours  it  is  going  to  take  to  do  a  whole  thing. 
It  is  singularly  a  sense  for  combination  within  a  conception  of  the 
existence  of  a  given  space  of  time  that  makes  the  American  thing  the 
American  thing,  and  the  sense  of  this  space  of  time  must  be  within  the 
whole  thing  as  well  as  in  the  completed  whole  thing. 

I  felt  this  thing,  I  am  an  American  and  I  felt  this  thing,  and  I  made 
a  continuous  effort  to  create  this  thing  in  every  paragraph  that  I  made 
in  The  Making  of  Americans.  And  that  is  why  after  all  this  book  is 
an  American  book  an  essentially  American  book,  because  this  thing  is 
ai>  essentially  American  thing  this  sense  of  a  space  of  time  and  what  is 
to  be  done  within  this  space  of  time  not  in  any  way  excepting  in  the 
way  that  it  is  inevitable  that  there  is  this  space  of  time  and  anybody  who 


226  THE  GRADUAL  MAKING  OF 

is  an  American  feels  what  is  inside  this  space  of  time  and  so  well  they 
do  what  they  do  within  this  space  of  time,  and  so  ultimately  it  is  a  thing 
contained  within.  I  wonder  if  I  at  all  convey  to  you  what  I  mean  by  this 
thing.  I  will  try  to  tell  it  in  every  way  I  can  as  I  have  in  all  the  writing 
that  I  have  ever  done.  I  am  always  trying  to  tell  this  thing  that  a  space 
of  time  is  a  natural  thing  for  an  American  to  always  have  inside  them 
as  something  in  which  they  are  continuously  moving.  Think  of  any- 
thing, of  cowboys,  of  movies,  of  detective  stories,  of  anybody  who  goes 
anywhere  or  stays  at  home  and  is  an  American  and  you  will  realize  that 
it  is  something  strictly  American  to  conceive  a  space  that  is  filled  with 
moving,  a  space  of  time  that  is  filled  always  filled  with  moving  and  my 
first  real  effort  to  express  this  thing  which  is  an  American  thing  began 
in  writing  The  Making  of  Americans. 


The  Making  of  Americans 


Written  in  1906—08,  this  huge  volume,  which  in  its  entirety  runs  to 
nearly  a  thousand  pages,  was  first  published  in  7925.  It  must  be  as  long 
as  CLARISSA  HARLOWE  which  Miss  Stein  has  described  as  the  "greatest 
of  all  novels!9  There  have  been  several  different  editions  and  parts  of 
the  booJ^  have  been  translated  and  published  in  French.  One  of  her 
avowed  aims  in  writing  this  "history"  and  A  LONG  GAY  BOOK  which 
followed,  was  to  describe  every  known  type  of  human  being,  an  ambi- 
tion she  permitted  to  languish  when  she  discovered  it  really  would  be 
possible  for  her  to  do  it.  Another  aim,  she  asserts  in  NARRATION,  was  to 
escape  from  inevitably  feeling  that  everything  had  meaning  as  begin- 
ning and  middle  and  ending.  In  EVERYBODY'S  AUTOBIOGRAPHY  Gertrude 
Stein  has  written:  ''We  had  a  mother  and  a  father  and  I  tell  all  about 
that  in  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  which  is  a  history  of  our  family." 
The  author  entrusted  the  manuscript  of  this  worf^,  in  seven  or  eight 
bound  volumes,  to  her  friend  Mrs.  Charles  Knoblauch  who  brought  it 
to  America.  Mrs.  Knoblauch  in  turn  brought  it  to  me  and  it  remained 
with  me  for  several  years,  during  which  period  I  attempted  with  no 
success  to  awaken  the  interest  of  one  publisher  after  another.  In  the 
actual  eventual  publication,  alas,  I  was  not  involved. 


Once  an  angry  man  dragged  his  father  along  the  ground  through  his 
own  orchard.  "Stop!"  cried  the  groaning  old  man  at  last,  "Stop!  I  did 
not  drag  my  father  beyond  this  tree." 

It  is  hard  living  down  the  tempers  we  are  born  with.  We  all  begin 
well,  for  in  our  youth  there  is  nothing  we  are  more  intolerant  of  than 
our  own  sins  writ  large  in  others  and  we  fight  them  fiercely  in  our- 
selves; but  we  grow  old  and  we  see  that  these  our  sins  are  of  all  sins  the 
really  harmless  ones  to  own,  nay  that  they  give  a  charm  to  any  character, 
and  so  our  struggle  with  them  dies  away. 


I  am  writing  for  myself  and  strangers.  This  is  the  only  way  that  I  can 
do  it.  Everybody  is  a  real  one  to  me,  everybody  is  like  some  one  else  too 
to  me.  No  one  of  them  that  I  know  can  want  to  know  it  and  so  I  write 
for  myself  and  strangers. 

Every  one  is  always  busy  with  it,  no  one  of  them  then  ever  want  to 
know  it  that  every  one  looks  like  some  one  else  and  they  see  it.  Mostly 
every  one  dislikes  to  hear  it.  It  is  very  important  to  me  to  always  know 
it,  to  always  see  it  which  one  looks  like  others  and  to  tell  it.  I  write  for 
myself  and  strangers.  I  do  this  for  my  own  sake  and  for  the  sake  of 
those  who  know  I  know  it  that  they  look  like  other  ones,  that  they  are 
separate  and  yet  always  repeated.  There  are  some  who  like  it  that  I 
know  they  are  like  many  others  and  repeat  it,  there  are  many  who  never 
can  really  like  it. 

There  are  many  that  I  know  and  they  know  it.  They  are  all  of  them 

229 


230  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

repeating  and  I  hear  it.  I  love  it  and  I  tell  it,  I  love  it  and  now  I  will 
write  it.  This  is  now  the  history  of  the  way  some  of  them  are  it. 

I  write  for  myself  and  strangers.  No  one  who  knows  me  can  like  it. 
At  least  they  mostly  do  not  like  it  that  every  one  is  of  a  kind  of  men  and 
women  and  I  see  it.  I  love  it  and  I  write  it. 

I  want  readers  so  strangers  must  do  it.  Mostly  no  one  knowing  me  can 
like  it  that  I  love  it  that  every  one  is  of  a  kind  of  men  and  women,  that 
always  I  am  looking  and  comparing  and  classifying  of  them,  always  I 
am  seeing  their  repeating.  Always  more  and  more  I  love  repeating,  it 
may  be  irritating  to  hear  from  them  but  always  more  and  more  I  love  it 
of  them.  More  and  more  I  love  it  of  them,  the  being  in  them,  the  mix- 
ing in  them,  the  repeating  in  them,  the  deciding  the  kind  of  them  every 
one  is  who  has  human  being. 

This  is  now  a  little  of  what  I  love  and  how  I  write  it.  Later  there  will 
be  much  more  of  it. 

There  are  many  ways  of  making  kinds  of  men  and  women.  Now 
there  will  be  descriptions  of  every  kind  of  way  every  one  can  be  a  kind 
of  men  and  women. 

This  is  now  a  history  of  Martha  Hersland.  This  is  now  a  history  of 
Martha  and  of  every  one  who  came  to  be  of  her  living. 

There  will  then  be  soon  much  description  of  every  way  one  can  think 
of  men  and  women,  in  their  beginning,  in  their  middle  living,  and  their 
ending. 

Every  one  then  is  an  individual  being.  Every  one  then  is  like  many 
others  always  living,  there  are  many  ways  of  thinking  of  every  one,  this 
is  now  a  description  of  all  of  them.  There  must  then  be  a  whole  history 
of  each  one  of  them.  There  must  then  now  be  a  description  of  all  repeat- 
ing. Now  I  will  tell  all  the  meaning  to  me  in  repeating,  the  loving  there 
is  in  me  for  repeating. 

Every  one  is  one  inside  them,  every  one  reminds  some  one  of  some 
other  one  who  is  or  was  or  will  be  living.  Every  one  has  it  to  say  of  each 
one  he  is  like  such  a  one  I  see  it  in  him,  every  one  has  it  to  say  of  each 
one  she  is  like  some  one  else  I  can  tell  by  remembering.  So  it  goes  on 
always  in  living,  every  one  is  always  remembering  some  one  who  is  re- 
sembling to  the  one  at  whom  they  are  then  looking.  So  they  go  on  re- 
peating, every  one  is  themselves  inside  them  and  every  one  is  resembling 
to  others,  and  that  is  always  interesting.  There  are  many  ways  of  mak- 
ing kinds  of  men  and  women.  In  each  way  of  making  kinds  of  them 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  231 

there  is  a  different  system  of  finding  them  resembling.  Sometime  there 
will  be  here  every  way  there  can  be  of  seeing  kinds  of  men  and  women. 
Sometime  there  will  be  then  a  complete  history  of  each  one.  Every  one 
always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them  and  so  sometime  some  one  who 
sees'them  will  have  a  complete  history  of  every  one.  Sometime  some  one 
will  know  all  the  ways  there  are  for  people  to  be  resembling,  some  one 
sometime  then  will  have  a  completed  history  of  every  one. 

Soon  now  there  will  be  a  history  of  the  way  repeating  comes  out  of 
them  comes  out  of  men  and  women  when  they  are  young,  when  they 
are  children,  they  have  then  their  own  system  of  being  resembling;  this 
will  soon  be  a  description  of  the  men  and  women  in  beginning,  the 
being  young  in  them,  the  being  children. 

There  is  then  now  and  here  the  loving  repetition,  this  is  then,  now 
and  here,  a  description  of  the  loving  of  repetition  and  then  there  will  be 
a  description  of  all  the  kinds  of  ways  there  can  be  seen  to  be  kinds  of 
men  and  women.  Then  there  will  be  realised  the  complete  history  of 
every  one,  the  fundamental  character  of  every  one,  the  bottom  nature  in 
them,  the  mixtures  in  them,  the  strength  and  weakness  of  everything 
they  have  inside  them,  the  flavor  of  them,  the  meaning  in  them,  the 
being  in  them,  and  then  you  have  a  whole  history  then  of  each  one. 
Everything  then  they  do  in  living  is  clear  to  the  completed  understand- 
ing, their  living,  loving,  eating,  pleasing,  smoking,  thinking,  scolding, 
drinking,  working,  dancing,  walking,  talking,  laughing,  sleeping,  every- 
thing in  them.  There  are  whole  beings  then,  they  are  themselves  inside 
them,  repeating  coining  out  of  them  makes  a  history  of  each  one  of  them. 

Always  from  the  beginning  there  was  to  me  all  living  as  repeating. 
This  is  now  a  description  of  my  feeling.  As  I  was  saying  listening  to 
repeating  is  often  irritating,  always  repeating  is  all  of  living,  everything 
in  a  being  is  always  repeating,  more  and  more  listening  to  repeating 
gives  to  me  completed  understanding.  Each  one  slowly  comes  to  be  a 
whole  one  to  me.  Each  one  slowly  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  in  me.  Soon 
then  it  commences  to  sound  through  my  ears  and  eyes  and  feelings  the 
repeating  that  is  always  coming  out  from  each  one,  that  is  them,  that 
makes  then  slowly  of  each  one  of  them  a  whole  one.  Repeating  then 
comes  slowly  then  to  be  to  one  who  has  it  to  have  loving  repeating  as 
natural  being  comes  to  be  a  full  sound  telling  all  the  being  in  each  one 
such  a  one  is  ever  knowing.  Sometimes  it  takes  many  years  of  knowing 
some  one  before  the  repeating  that  is  that  one  gets  to  be  a  steady  sound- 


232  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

ing  to  the  hearing  of  one  who  has  it  as  a  natural  being  to  love  repeating 
that  slowly  comes  out  from  every  one.  Sometimes  it  takes  many  years  of 
knowing  some  one  before  the  repeating  in  that  one  comes  to  be  a  clear 
history  of  such  a  one.  Natures  sometimes  are  so  mixed  up  in  some  one 
that  steady  repeating  in  them  is  mix^ed  up  with  changing.  Soon  then 
there  will  be  a  completed  history  of  each  one.  Sometimes  it  is  difficult  to 
know  it  in  some,  for  what  these  are  saying  is  repeating  in  them  is  not  the 
real  repeating  of  them,  is  not  the  complete  repeating  for  them.  Sometimes 
many  years  of  knowing  some  one  pass  before  repeating  of  all  being  in 
them  comes  out  clearly  from  them.  As  I  was  saying  it  is  often  irritating 
to  listen  to  the  repeating  they  are  doing,  always  then  that  one  that  has  it 
as  being  to  love  repeating  that  is  the  whole  history  of  each  one,  such  a 
one  has  it  then  that  this  irritation  passes  over  into  patient  completed 
understanding.  Loving  repeating  is  one  way  of  being.  This  is  now  a  de- 
scription of  such  feeling. 

There  are  many  that  I  know  and  they  know  it.  They  are  all  of  them 
repeating  and  I  hear  it.  I  love  it  and  I  tell  it.  I  love  it  and  now  I  will 
write  it.  This  is  now  a  history  of  my  love  of  it.  I  hear  it  and  I  love  it 
and  I  write  it.  They  repeat  it.  They  live  it  and  I  see  it  and  I  hear  it. 
They  live  it  and  I  hear  it  and  I  see  it  and  I  love  it  and  now  and  always  I 
will  write  it.  There  are  many  kinds  of  men  and  women  and  I  know  it. 
They  repeat  it  and  I  hear  it  and  I  love  it.  This  is  now  a  history  of  the 
way  they  do  it.  This  is  now  a  history  of  the  way  I  love  it. 

Now  I  will  tell  of  the  meaning  to  me  in  repeating,  of  the  loving  there 
is  in  me  for  repeating. 

Sometime  every  one  becomes  a  whole  one  to  me.  Sometime  every 
one  has  a  completed  history  for  me.  Slowly  each  one  is  a  whole  one  to 
me,  with  some,  all  their  living  is  passing  before  they  are  a  whole  one  to 
me.  There  is  a  completed  history  of  them  to  me  then  when  there  is  of 
them  a  completed  understanding  of  the  bottom  nature  in  them  of  the 
nature  or  natures  mixed  up  in  them  with  the  bottom  nature  of  them  or 
separated  in  them.  There  is  then  a  history  of  the  things  they  say  and  do 
and  feel,  and  happen  to  them.  There  is  then  a  history  of  the  living  in 
them.  Repeating  is  always  in  all  of  them.  Repeating  in  them  comes  out 
of  them,  slowly  making  clear  to  any  one  that  looks  closely  at  them  the 
nature  and  the  natures  mixed  up  in  them.  This  sometime  comes  to  be 
clear  in  every  one. 

Often  as  I  was  saying  repeating  is  very  irritating  to  listen  to  from 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  233 

them  and  then  slowly  it  settles  into  a  completed  history  o£  them.  Repeat- 
ing is  a  wonderful  thing  in  living  being.  Sometime  then  the  nature  of 
every  one  comes  to  be  clear  to  some  one  listening  to  the  repeating  com- 
ing out  of  each  one. 

This  is  then  now  to  be  a  little  description  of  the  loving  feeling  for 
understanding  of  the  completed  history  of  each  one  that  comes  to  one 
who  listens  always  steadily  to  all  repeating.  This  is  the  history  then  of 
the  loving  feeling  in  me  of  repeating,  the  loving  feeling  in  me  for  com- 
pleted understanding  of  the  completed  history  of  every  one  as  it  slowly 
comes  out  in  every  one  as  patiently  and  steadily  I  hear  it  and  see  it  as 
repeating  in  them.  This  is  now  a  little  a  description  of  this  loving  feel- 
ing. This  is  now  a  little  a  history  of  it  from  the  beginning. 

Always  then  I  listen  and  come  back  again  and  again  to  listen  to  every 
one.  Always  then  I  am  thinking  and  feeling  the  repeating  in  every  one. 
Sometime  then  there  will  be  for  me  a  completed  history  of  every  one. 
Every  one  is  separate  then  and  a  kind  of  men  and  women. 

Sometime  it  takes  many  years  of  knowing  some  one  before  the  repeat- 
ing in  that  one  comes  to  be  a  clear  history  of  such  a  one.  Sometimes  many 
years  of  knowing  some  one  pass  before  repeating  of  all  being  in  such  a 
one  comes  out  clearly  from  them,  makes  a  completed  understanding  of 
them  by  some  one  listening,  watching,  hearing  all  the  repeating  coming 
out  from  such  a  one. 

As  I  was  saying  loving  listening,  hearing  always  all  repeating,  com- 
ing to  completed  understanding  of  each  one  is  to  some  a  natural  way  of 
being.  This  is  now  more  description  of  the  feeling  such  a  one  has  in  them, 
this  is  now  more  description  of  the  way  listening  to  repeating  comes  to 
make  complete  understanding.  This  is  now  more  description  of  the 
way  repeating  slowly  comes  to  make  in  each  one  a  completed  history  of 
them. 

There  are  many  that  I  know  and  always  more  and  more  I  know  it. 
They  are  all  of  them  repeating  and  I  hear  it.  More  and  more  I  under- 
stand it.  Always  more  and  more  I  hear  it,  always  more  and  more  it  has 
completed  history  in  it. 

Every  one  has  their  own  being  in  them.  Every  one  is  of  a  kind  of  men 
and  women.  Many  have  mixed  up  in  them  some  kind  of  many  kinds 
of  men  and  women.  Slowly  this  comes  clearly  out  from  them  in  the 
repeating  that  is  always  in  all  living.  Slowly  it  comes  out  from  them  to 
the  most  delicate  gradation,  to  the  gentlest  flavor  of  them.  Always  it 


234  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

comes  out  as  repeating  from  them.  Always  it  comes  out  as  repeating,  out 
of  them.  Then  to  the  complete  understanding  they  keep  on  repeating 
this,  the  whole  of  them  and  any  one  seeing  them  then  can  understand 
them.  This  is  a  joy  to  any  one  loving  repeating  when  in  any  one  repeat- 
ing steadily  tells  over  and  over  again  the  history  of  the  complete  being 
in  them.  This  is  a  solid  happy  satisfaction  to  any  one  who  has  it  in  them 
to  love  repeating  and  completed  understanding. 

As  I  was  saying  often  for  many  years  some  one  is  baffling.  The  re- 
peated hearing  of  them  does  not  make  the  completed  being  they  have 
in  them  to  any  one.  Sometimes  many  years  pass  in  listening  to  repeating 
in  such  a  one  and  the  being  of  them  is  not  a  completed  history  to  any 
one  then  listening  to  them.  Sometimes  then  it  comes  out  of  them  a 
louder  repeating  that  before  was  not  clear  to  anybody's  hearing  and  then 
it  is  a  completed  being  to  some  one  listening  to  the  repeating  coming  out 
of  such  a  one. 

This  is  then  now  a  description  of  loving  repeating  being  in  some.  This 
is  then  now  a  description  of  loving  repeating  being  in  one. 

There  are  many  that  I  know  and  they  know  it.  They  are  all  of  them 
repeating  and  I  hear  it.  More  and  more  I  understand  it.  I  love  it  and  I 
tell  it.  I  love  it  and  always  I  will  tell  it.  They  live  it  and  I  see  it  and 
I  hear  it.  They  repeat  it  and  I  hear  it  and  I  see  it,  sometimes  then  always  I 
understand  it,  sometime  then  always  there  is  a  completed  history  of  each 
one  by  it,  sometime  then  I  will  tell  the  completed  history  of  each  one  as 
by  repeating  I  come  to  know  it. 

Every  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them.  Every  one  is  repeat- 
ing the  whole  of  them,  such  repeating  is  then  always  in  them  and  so 
sometime  some  one  who  sees  them  will  have  a  complete  understanding 
of  the  whole  of  each  one  of  them,  will  have  a  completed  history  of  every 
man  and  every  woman  they  ever  come  to  know  in  their  living,  every 
man  and  eve^y  woman  who  were  or  are  or  will  be  living  whom  such  a 
one  can  come  to  know  in  living. 

This  then  is  a  history  of  many  men  and  women,  sometime  there  will 
be  a  history  of  every  one. 

As  I  was  saying  every  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them.  As 
I  was  saying  sometimes  it  takes  many  years  of  hearing  the  repeating  in 
one  before  the  whole  being  is  clear  to  the  understanding  of  one  who  has 
it  as  a  being  to  love  repeating,  to  know  that  always  every  one  is  repeat- 
ing the  whole  of  them. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  235 

This  is  then  the  way  such  a  one,  one  who  has  it  as  a  being  to  love  re- 
peating, to  know  that  always  every  one  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them 
comes  to  a  completed  understanding  of  any  one.  This  is  now  a  descrip- 
tion of  such  a  way  of  hearing  repeating. 

Every  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them.  Many  always  listen 
to  all  repeating  that  comes  to  them  in  their  living.  Some  have  it  as  being 
to  love  the  repeating  that  is  always  in  every  one  coming  out  from  them 
as  a  whole  of  them.  This  is  now  a  description  of  such  a  one  and  the  com- 
pleted understanding  of  each  one  who  is  repeating  in  such  a  one's  living. 

Every  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them.  Always,  one  having 
loving  repeating  to  getting  completed  understanding  must  have  in  them 
an  open  feeling,  a  sense  for  all  the  slightest  variations  in  repeating,  must 
never  lose  themselves  so  in  the  solid  steadiness  of  all  repeating  that  they 
do  not  hear  the  slightest  variation.  If  they  get  deadened  by  the  steady 
pounding  of  repeating  they  will  not  learn  from  each  one  even  though 
each  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them  they  will  not  learn  the 
completed  history  of  them,  they  will  not  know  the  being  really  in  them. 

As  I  was  saying  every  one  always  is  repeating  the  whole  of  them.  As 
I  was  saying  sometimes  it  takes  many  years  of  listening,  seeing,  living, 
feeling,  loving  the  repeating  there  is  in  some  before  one  comes  to  a 
completed  understanding.  This  is  now  a  description,  of  such  a  way  of 
hearing,  seeing,  feeling,  living,  loving,  repetition. 

Mostly  every  one  loves  some  one's  repeating.  Mostly  every  one  then, 
comes  to  know  then  the  being  of  some  one  by  loving  the  repeating  in 
them,  the  repeating  coming  out  of  them.  There  are  some  who  love  every- 
body's repeating,  this  is  now  a  description  of  such  loving  in  one. 

Mostly  every  one  loves  some  one's  repeating.  Every  one  always  is  re- 
peating the  whole  of  them.  This  is  now  a  history  of  getting  completed 
understanding  by  loving  repeating  in  every  one  the  repeating  that  always 
is  coming  out  of  them  as  a  complete  history  of  them.  This  is  now  a 
description  of  learning  to  listen  to  all  repeating  that  every  one  always  is 
making  of  the  whole  of  them. 

Now  I  will  tell  of  the  meaning  to  me  in  repeating,  of  the  loving  there 
is  in  me  for  repeating. 

Always  from  the  beginning  there  was  to  me  all  living  as  repeating. 
This  is  now  a  description  of  loving  repeating  as  a  being.  This  is  now  a 
history  of  learning  to  listen  to  repeating  to  come  to  a  completed  under- 
standing. 


236  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

To  go  on. now  giving  all  of  the  description  of  how  repeating  comes  to 
have  meaning,  how  it  forms  itself,  how  one  must  distinguish  the  differ- 
ent meanings  in  repeating.  Sometimes  it  is  very  hard  to  understand  the 
meaning  of  repeating.  Sometime  there  will  be  a  complete  history  of 
some  one  having  loving  repeating  as  being,  to  a  completed  understand- 
ing. Now  there  will  be  a  little  description  of  such  a  one. 

Sometime  then  there  will  be  a  complete  history  of  all  repeating  to  com- 
pleted understanding.  Sometime  then  there  will  be  a  complete  history  of 
every  one  who  ever  was  or  is  or  will  be  living. 

Sometime  there  will  be  a  complete  history  of  some  one  having  loving 
repeating  to  a  completed  understanding  as  being.  Sometime  then  there 
will  be  a  complete  history  of  many  women  and.  many  men. 

Now  there  is  to  be  some  description  of  some  one  having  loving  repeat- 
ing to  a  completed  understanding  as  being.  Then  there  will  be  a  com- 
plete history  of  some. 

More  and  more  then  there  will  be  a  history  of  many  men  and  many 
women  from  their  beginning  to  their  ending,  as  being  babies  and  chil- 
dren and  growing  young  men  and  growing  young  women  and  young 
grown  men  and  young  grown  women  and  men  and  women  in  their 
middle  living  and  growing  old  men  and  growing  old  women  and  old 
men  and  old  women. 

More  and  more  then  there  will  be  histories  of  all  the  kinds  there  are 
of  men  and  women. 

This  is  now  a  little  description  of  having  loving  repeating  as  being. 
This  is  now  a  little  description  of  one  having  loving  repeating  as  being. 

Loving  repeating  is  one  way  of  being.  This  is  now  a  description  of 
such  being.  Loving  repeating  is  always  in  children.  Loving  repeating  is 
in  a  way  earth  feeling.  Some  children  have  loving  repeating  for  little 
things  and  story-telling,  some  have  it  as  a  more  bottom  being.  Slowly 
this  comes  out  in  them  in  all  their  children  being,  in  their  eating,  play- 
ing, crying,  and  laughing.  Loving  repeating  is  then  in  a  way  earth  feel- 
ing. This  is  very  strong  in  some.  This  is  very  strong  in  many,  in  children 
and  in  old  age  being.  This  is  very  strong  in  many  in  all  ways  of  humorous 
being,  this  is  very  strong  in  some  from  their  beginning  to  their  ending. 
This  is  now  some  description  of  such  being  in  one. 

As  I  was  saying  loving  repeating  being  is  in  a  way  earthy  being.  In 
some  it  is  repeating  that  gives  to  them  always  a  solid  feeling  of  being. 
In  some  children  there  is  more  feeling  in  repeating  eating  and  playing, 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  237 

in  some  in  story-telling  and  their  feeling.  More  and  more  in  living  as 
growing  young  men  and  women  and  grown  young  men  and  women  and 
men  and  women  in  their  middle  living,  more  and  more  there  comes  to 
be  in  them  differences  in  loving  repeating  in  different  kinds  of  men  and 
women,  there  comes  to  be  in  some  more  and  in  some  less  loving  repeat- 
ing. Loving  repeating  in  some  is  a  going  on  always  in  them  of  earthy 
being,  in  some  it  is  the  way  to  completed  understanding.  Loving  repeat- 
ing then  in  some  is  their  natural  way  of  complete  being.  This  is  now 
some  description  of  one. 

There  is  then  always  repeating  in  all  living.  There  is  then  in  each 
one  always  repeating  their  whole  being,  the  whole  nature  in  them.  Much 
loving  repeating  has  to  be  in  a  being  so  that  that  one  can  listen  to  all  the 
repeating  in  every  one.  Almost  every  one  loves  all  repeating  in  some  one. 
This  is  now  some  description  of  loving  repeating,  all  repeating,  in  every 
one. 

To  begin  again  with  the  children.  To  begin  again  with  the  repeating 
being  in  them.  To  begin  again  with  the  loving  repeating  being  in  them. 
As  I  was  saying  some  children  have  it  in  them  to  love  repeating  in  them 
of  eating,  of  angry  feeling  in  them,  many  of  them  have  loving  repeating 
for  story-telling  in  them,  many  of  them  have  loving  repeating  being 
in  them  for  any  kind  of  being  funny,  in  making  jokes  or  teasing,  many 
of  them  having  loving  repeating  being  in  them  in  all  kinds  of  playing. 
Mostly  every  one  when  they  are  children,  mostly  every  one  has  then  lov- 
ing repeating  being  strongly  in  them,  some  have  it  more  some  have  it 
less  in  them  and  this  comes  out  more  and  more  in  them  as  they  come  to 
be  young  adolescents  in  their  being  and  then  grown  young  men  and 
grown  young  women. 

To  begin  again  then  with  children  in  their  having  loving  repeating 
being.  Mostly  all  children  have  loving  repeating  as  being  in  them  but 
some  have  it  much  more  and  some  have  it  much  less  in  them.  Loving 
repeating  being  is  more  of  that  kind  of  being  that  has  resisting  as  its 
natural  way  of  fighting  than  of  that  kind  of  being  that  has  attacking  as 
its  natural  way  of  winning.  But  this  is  a  very  complicated  question.  I 
know  very  much  about  these  ways  of  being  in  men  and  women.  I  know 
it  and  can  say  it,  it  is  a  very  complex  question  and  I  do  not  know  yet 
the  whole  of  it,  so  I  can  not  yet  say  all  1 4cnow  of  it. 

As  I  was  saying  all  little  children  have  in  them  mostly  very  much 
loving  repeating  being.  As  they  grow  into  bigger  children  some  have  it 


238  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

more  some  have  it  less  in  them.  Some  have  it  in  them  more  and  more 
as  a  conscious  feeling.  Many  of  them  do  not  have  it  in  them  more  and 
more  as  a  conscious  feeling.  Mostly  when  they  are  growing  to  be  young 
men  and  women  they  have  not  it  in  them  to  have  loving  repeating  being 
in  them  as  a  conscious  feeling. 

Mostly  every  one  has  not  it  in  them  as  a  conscious  feeling  as  a  young 
grown  man  or  young  grown  woman.  Some  have  it  in  them,  loving  re- 
peating feeling  as  steadily  developing,  this  is  now  a  history  of  one. 

Many  men  and  many  women  never  have  it  in  them  the  conscious 
feeling  of  loving  repeating.  Many  men  and  many  women  never  have 
it  in  them  until  old  age  weakening  is  in  them,  a  consciousness  of  re- 
peating. Many  have  it  in  them  all  their  living  as  a  conscious  feeling  as  a 
humorous  way  of  being  in  them.  Some  have  it  in  them,  the  conscious- 
ness of  always  repeating  the  whole  of  them  as  a  serious  obligation.  There 
are  many  many  ways  then  of  having  repeating  as  conscious  feeling,  of 
having  loving  repeating  as  a  bottom  being,  of  having  loving  repeating 
being  as  a  conscious  feeling. 

As  I  was  saying  mostly  all  children  have  in  them  loving  repeating 
being  as  important  in  them  to  them  and  to  every  one  around  them. 
Mostly  growing  young  men  and  growing  young  women  have  to  them- 
selves very  little  loving  repeating  being,  they  do  not  have  it  to  each  other 
then  most  of  them,  they  have  it  to  older  ones  then  as  older  ones  have  it 
to  them  loving  repeating  being,  not  loving  repeating  being  but  repeat- 
ing as  the  way  of  being  in  them,  repeating  of  the  whole  of  them  as 
coming  every  minute  from  them. 

In  the  middle  living  of  men  and  women  there  are  very  different  ways 
of  feeling  to  repeating,  some  have  more  and  more  in  them  loving  re- 
peating as  a  conscious  feeling,  some  have  less  and  less  liking  in  them 
for  the  repeating  in,  to  them,  of  mostly  every  one.  Mostly  every  one 
has  a  loving  feeling  for  repeating  in  some  one.  Some  have  not  any  such 
loving  even  in  the  repeating  going  on  inside  themselves  then,  not  even 
for  any  one  they  are  loving. 

Some  then  have  always  growing  in  them  more  and  more  loving  feel- 
ing for  the  repeating  in  every  one.  Many  have  not  any  loving  for  repeat- 
ing in  many  of  those  around  them. 

There  are  then  many  ways  of  feeling  in  one  about  repeating.  There 
are  many  ways  of  knowing  repeating  when  one  sees  and  hears  and  feels 
it  in  every  one. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  239 

Loving  repeating  then  is  important  being  in  some.  This  is  now  some 
description  of  the  importance  of  loving  repeating  being  in  one. 

Some  find  it  interesting  to  find  inside  them  repeating  in  them  of  some 
one  they  have  known  or  some  relation  to  them  coming  out  in  them,  some 
never  have  any  such  feeling  in  them,  some  have  not  any  liking  for  such 
being  in  them.  Some  like  to  see  such  being  in  others  around  them  but 
not  in  themselves  inside  them.  There  are  many  ways  of  feeling  in  one 
about  all  these  kinds  of  repeating.  Sometime  there  will  be  written  the 
history  of  all  of  them. 

To  begin  again  then  with  some  description  of  the  meaning  of  loving 
repeating  being  when  it  is  strongly  in  a  man  or  in  a  woman,  when  it  is 
in  them  their  way  of  understanding  everything  in  living  and  there  are 
very  many  always  living  of  such  being.  This  is  now  again  a  beginning  of 
a  little  description  of  it  in  one. 

Repeating  of  the  whole  of  them  is  then  always  in  every  one.  There 
are  different  stages  in  being,  there  is  being  babies  and  children  and  then 
growing  young  men  or  women  and  grown  young  men  or  women  and 
men  or  women  in  middle  living  and  in  growing  old  and  in  ending. 
There  are  many  kinds  of  men  and  women  and  soon  now  there  will  be  a 
beginning  of  a  history  of  all  of  them  who  ever  were  or  are  or  will  be 
living.  There  will  be  then  here  written  a  history  of  some  of  them.  To 
begin  again  then  with  loving  repeating  being  as  a  bottom  nature  in 
some.  To  begin  again  with  the  developing  of  it  in  one. 

As  I  was  saying  children  have  it  in  them  to  have  strongly  loving  re- 
peating being  as  a  conscious  feeling  in  so  far  as  they  can  be  said  to  have 
such  a  thing  in  them.  It  gives  to  them  a  solid  feeling  of  knowing  they 
are  safe  in  living.  With  growing  it  comes  to  be  more  in  some,  it  comes 
to  be  less  in  others  of  them.  Mostly  there  is  very  little  conscious  loving 
repeating  feeling  in  growing  young  men  and  women. 

In  the  beginning  then,  in  remembering,  repeating  was  strongly  in 
the  feeling  of  one,  in  the  feeling  of  many,  in  the  feeling  of  most  of  them 
who  have  it  to  Jiave  strongly  in  them  their  earthy  feeling  of  being  part 
of  the  solid  dirt  around  them.  This  is  one  kind  of  being.  This  is  mostly 
of  one  kind  of  being,  of  slow-minded  resisting  fighting  being.  This  is 
now  a  little  a  description  of  one. 

Slowly  then  some  go  on  living,  they  may  be  fairly  quick  in  learning, 
some  of  such  of  them  seem  very  quick  and  impetuous  in  learning  and  in 
acting  but  such  learning  has  for  such  of  them  very  little  meaning,  it  is 


240  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

the  slow  repeating  resisting  inside  them  that  has  meaning  for  them. 
Now  there  will  be  a  little  a  description  of  loving  repeating  being  in  one 
of  such  of  them. 

The  kinds  and  ways  of  repeating,  of  attacking  and  resisting  in  dif- 
ferent kinds  of  men  and  women,  the  practical,  the  emotional,  the  sensi- 
tive, the  every  kind  of  being  in  every  one  who  ever  was  or  is  or  will  be 
living,  I  know  so  much  about  all  of  them,  many  of  them  are  very  clear 
in  kinds  of  men  and  women,  in  individual  men  and  women,  I  know 
them  so  well  inside  them,  repeating  in  them  has  so  much  meaning  to 
knowing,  more  and  more  I  know  all  there  is  of  all  being,  more  and 
more  I  know  it  in  all  the  ways  it  is  in  them  and  comes  out  of  them,  some- 
time there  will  be  a  history  of  every  one,  sometime  all  history  of  all  men 
and  women  will  be  inside  some  one. 

Now  there  will  be  a  little  description  of  the  coming  to  be  history  of 
all  men  and  women,  in  some  one.  This  is  then  to  be  a  little  history  of 
such  a  one.  This  is  then  now  to  be  a  little  description  of  loving  repeating 
being  in  one. 

Almost  every  one  has  it  in  them  in  their  beginning  to  have  loving 
repeating  being  strongly  in  them.  Some  of  them  have  attacking  being 
as  the  bottom  nature  in  them,  some  of  them  have  resisting  being  as  the 
bottom  nature  in  them.  Some  of  both  these  kinds  of  them  have  more 
or  less  in  all  their  living  loving  repeating  being  in  them,  it  works  dif- 
ferently in  them  to  come  out  of  them  in  these  two  kinds  of  them.  Later 
there  will  be  much  description  of  the  way  it  comes  out  from  them  and  is 
in  them  in  the  different  kinds  of  them.  Now  there  is  to  be  a  little  descrip- 
tion of  it  in  one  having  resisting  as  the  way  of  winning  fighting.  This  is 
now  some  description  of  such  a  one  having  loving  repeating  being  de- 
veloping into  completed  understanding.  Now  to  slowly  begin. 

The  relation  of  learning  to  being,  of  thinking  to  feeling,  of  realisation 
to  emotion,  all  these  and  many  others  are  very  complicated  questions. 
Sometimes  there  will  be  much  description  of  them  with  the  kinds  of  men 
and  women  with  being  in  them,  with  mixtures  in  them,  that  complicates 
them.  There  will  sometime  be  a  history  of  every  one.  This  is  a  sure  thing. 

Now  again  to  begin.  The  relation  of  learning  and  thinking  to  being, 
of  feeling  to  realising  is  a  complicated  question.  There  will  now  be  very 
little  talking  of  such  way  of  being.  As  I  was  saying  some  have  it  in  them 
to  have  slowly  resisting  as  their  natural  way  of  being  can  have  learning 
and  thinking  come  quickly  enough  in  them.  This  is  then  not  bottom 


'     THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  241 

being  in  them.  It  is  bottom  being  in  some  of  such  of  them.  This  is  very 
clear  now  in  my  knowing.  Now  to  begin  again  with  it  as  telling. 

Some  then  who  are  of  that  kind  of  being  who  have  slow  resisting 
being  as  their  way  to  wisdom  have  it  in  them  to  be  quick  in  learning  and 
in  thinking  and  in  acting.  As  I  was  saying  in  some  this  is  not  of  the 
bottom  nature  in  them,  in  some  it  is  bottom  nature  in  them  for  the  slow 
resisting  winning  bottom  to  them  was  not  put  in  in  the  making  of  them, 
in  some  it  is  in  them  but  dull  and  not  mixing  in  their  living,  in  some  it  is 
not  sensitive  to  action  in  their  living,  it  is  there  in  them  going  on  inside 
them  not  connecting  on  with  the  rest  of  them.  This  is  not  just  talking, 
this  all  has  real  meaning.  These  are  all  then  of  a  kind  of  men  and  women 
who  have  resisting  being  as  the  real  wisdom  in  them.  In  some  of  such  of 
them  they  seem  to  be  winning  by  acting  by  attacking  they  live  so  very 
successfully  in  living  but  nevertheless  they  are  of  the  kind  of  them  that 
have  resisting  winning  as  their  real  way  of  fighting  although  never  in 
their  living  does  this  act  in  them.  Careful  listening  to  the  whole  of  them 
always  repeating  shows  this  in  them,  what  kind  they  are  of  men  and 
women. 

To  begin  again.  This  is  now  some  description  of  one  having  loving 
repeating  as  a  way  to  wisdom,  having  slowly  resisting  winning  as  the 
bottom  being.  As  I  was  saying  learning  in  such  a  one  and  thinking  about 
everything  can  be  quick  enough  in  the  beginning. 

The  important  thing  then  in  knowing  the  bottom  nature  in  any  one 
is  the  way  their  real  being  slowly  comes  to  be  them,  the  whole  of  them 
comes  to  be  repeating  in  them. 

As  I  was  saying  some  can  have  quick  learning  and  nervous  attacking 
or  one  or  the  other  in  them  with  slow  resisting  being  in  them  as  their 
natural  way  of  winning.  There  is  every  kind  of  mixing.  There  is  every 
degree  of  intensification.  There  is  every  degree  of  hastening  the  resist- 
ing into  more  rapid  realisation.  There  is  every  degree  of  hurrying.  In 
short  there  are  all  degrees  of  intensification  and  rapidity  in  motion  and 
mixing  and  disguising  and  yet  the  kind  he  is  each  one,  the  kind  she  is 
each  one,  comes  to  be  clear  in  the  repeating  that  more  and  more  steadily 
makes  them  clear  to  any  one  looking  hard  at  them.  These  kinds  then 
are  existing,  the  independent  dependent,  the  dependent  independent, 
the  one  with  attacking  as  the  way  of  winning,  the  other  with  resisting 
as  the  way  of  wisdom  for  them.  I  know  then  this  is  true  of  every  one  that 
each  one  is  of  one  or  the  other  kind  of  these  two  kinds  of  them.  I  know 


242  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

it  is  in  them,  I  know  many  more  things  about  these  two  kinds  of  them. 
Slowly  they  come  to  be  clearer  in  every  one,  sometime  perhaps  it  will  be 
clear  to  every  one.  Sometime  perhaps  some  one  will  have  completely 
in  them  the  history  of  every  one  of  everything  in  every  one  and  the  de- 
gree and  kind  and  way  of  being  of  everything  in  each  one  in  them  from 
their  beginning  to  their  ending  and  coming  out  of  them. 

This  is  then  a  beginning  of  the  way  of  knowing  everything  in  every 
one,  of  knowing  the  complete  history  of  each  one  who  ever  is  or  was  or 
will  be  living.  This  is  then  a  little  description  of  the  winning  of  so  much 
wisdom. 

As  I  was  saying  the  important  thing  is  having  loving  repeating  being, 
that  is  the  beginning  of  learning  the  complete  history  of  every  one.  That 
being  must  always  be  in  such  a  one,  one  who  has  it  in  them  sometime  to 
have  in  them  the  completed  history  of  every  one  they  ever  can  hear  of  as 
having  being. 

There  are  so  many  ways  of  beginning  this  description,  and  now  once 
more  to  make  a  beginning. 

Always  repeating  is  all  of  living,  everything  that  is  being  is  always 
repeating,  more  and  more  listening  to  repeating  gives  to  me  completed 
understanding.  Each  one  then  slowly  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  to  me, 
each  one  slowly  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  in  me,  slowly  it  sounds  louder 
and  louder  and  louder  inside  me  through  my  ears  and  eyes  and  feelings 
and  the  talking  there  is  always  in  me  the  repeating  that  is  the  whole 
of  each  one  I  come  to  know  around,  and  each  one  of  them  then  comes 
to  be  a  whole  one  to  me,  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  in  me.  Loving  repeat- 
ing is  one  way  of  being.  This  is  now  a  description  of  such  being. 

Always  from  the  beginning  there  was  to  me  all  living  as  repeating. 
This  was  not  in  me  then  a  conscious  being.  Always  more  and  more 
this  is  in  me  developing  to  a  completed  being.  This  is  now  again  a  begin- 
ning of  a  little  description  of  such  being. 

In  their  beginning  as  children  every  one  has  in  them  loving  repeating 
being.  This  is  for  them  then  their  natural  being.  Later  in  conscious  being 
some  have  much  in  them  of  loving  repeating  being,  some  have  in  them 
almost  nothing  of  such  feeling.  There  are  then  these  two  kinds  of  them. 
This  is  then  one  way  of  thinking  of  them. 

There  are  two  kinds  of  men  and  women,  those  who  have  in  them 
resisting  as  their  way  of  winning  those  who  have  in  them  attacking  as 
their  way  of  winning  fighting,  there  are  many  kinds,  many  very  many 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  243 

kinds  of  each  of  these  two  kinds  of  men  and  women,  sometime  there  will 
be  written  a  description  of  all  the  kinds  of  them.  Now  this  division  is 
accepted  by  me  and  I  will  now  give  a  little  more  description  of  loving 
repeating  being  and  then  go  on  to  describing  how  it  comes  to  slowly  give 
to  me  completed  understanding,  loving  repeating  being  always  in  me 
acting,  of  this  one  and  that  one,  and  then  there  will  be  some  description 
of  resembling  coming  to  be  clear  by  looking  at  the  repeating  in  men  and 
women  and  then  there  will  be  more  history  of  Martha  Hersland  and  the 
being  coming  out  of  her  all  her  living  and  the  being  in  every  one  she 
came  to  know  in  living. 

Always  then  from  the  beginning  there  was  in  me  always  increasing 
as  a  conscious  feeling  loving  repeating  being,  learning  to  know  repeating 
in  every  one,  hearing  the  whole  being  of  any  one  always  repeating  in  that 
one  every  minute  of  their  living.  There  was  then  always  in  me  as  a 
bottom  nature  to  me  an  earthy,  resisting  slow  understanding,  loving 
repeating  being.  As  I  was  saying  this  has  nothing  to  do  with  ordinary 
learning,  in  a  way  with  ordinary  living.  This  will  be  clearer  later  in  this 
description. 

Many  have  loving  repeating  being  in  them,  many  never  come  to  know 
it  of  them,  many  never  have  it  as  a  conscious  feeling,  many  have  in  it  a 
restful  satisfaction.  Some  have  in  it  always  more  and  more  understand- 
ing, many  have  in  it  very  little  enlarging  understanding.  There  is  every 
kind  of  way  of  having  loving  repeating  being  as  a  bottom.  It  is  very 
clear  to  me  and  to  my  feeling,  it  is  very  slow  in  developing,  it  is  very 
important  to  make  it  clear  now  in  writing,  it  must  be  done  now  with  a 
slow  description.  To  begin  again  then  with  it  in  my  feeling,  to  begin 
again  then  to  tell  of  the  meaning  to  me  in  all  repeating,  of  the  loving 
there  is  in  me  for  repeating. 

Sometime  every  one  becomes  a  whole  one  to  me.  For  many  years  this 
was  just  forming  in  me.  Now  sometimes  it  takes  many  years  for  some 
one  to  be  a  whole  one  to  me.  For  many  years  loving  repeating  was  a 
bottom  to  me,  I  was  never  thinking  then  of  the  meaning  of  it  in  me,  it 
had  nothing  then  much  to  do  with  the  learning,  the  talking,  the  think- 
ing, nor  the  living  then  in  me.  There  was  for  many  years  a  learning  and 
talking  and  questioning  in  me  and  not  listening  to  repeating  in  every 
one  around  me.  Then  slowly  loving  repeating  being  came  to  be  a  con- 
scious feeling  in  me.  Slowly  then  every  cne  sometime  became  a  whole 
one  to  me. 


244  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

Now  I  will  tell  of  the  meaning  in  me  of  repeating,  of  the  loving  repeat- 
ing being  there  is  now  always  in  me. 

In  loving  repeating  being  then  to  completed  understanding  there 
must  always  be  a  feeling  for  all  changing,  a  feeling  for  living  being  that 
is  always  in  repeating.  This  is  now  again  a  beginning  of  a  description  of 
my  feeling. 

Always  then  I  am  thinking  and  feeling  the  repeating  in  each  one  as 
I  know  them.  Always  then  slowly  each  one  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  to 
me.  As  I  was  saying  loving  repeating  in  every  one,  hearing  always  all 
repeating,  coming  to  completed  understanding  of  each  one  is  to  me  a 
natural  way  of  being. 

There  are  many  that  I  know  and  always  more  and  more  I  know  it. 
They  are  all  of  them  repeating  and  I  hear  it.  They  are  all  of  them  living 
and  I  know  it.  More  and  more  I  understand  it,  always  more  and  more 
it  has  completed  history  in  it. 

Every  one  has  their  own  being  in  them.  Every  one  is  of  a  kind  of  men 
and  women.  Always  more  and  more  I  know  the  whole  history  of  each 
one.  This  is  now  a  little  a  description  of  such  knowing  in  me.  This  is  now 
a  little  a  description  of  beginning  of  hearing  repeating  all  around  me. 

As  I  was  saying  learning,  thinking,  living  in  the  beginning  of  being 
men  and  women  often  has  in  it  very  little  of  real  being.  Real  being, 
the  bottom  nature,  often  does  not  then  in  the  beginning  do  very  loud 
repeating.  Learning,  thinking,  talking,  living,  often  then  is  not  of  the 
real  bottom  being.  Some  are  this  way  all  their  living.  Some  slowly  come 
to  be  repeating  louder  and  more  clearly  the  bottom  being  that  makes 
them.  Listening  to  repeating,  knowing  being  in  every  one  who  ever  was 
or  is  or  will  be  living  slowly  came  to  be  in  me  a  louder  and  louder  pound- 
ing. Now  I  have  it  to  my  feeling  to  feel  all  living,  to  be  always  listening 
to  the  slightest  changing,  to  have  each  one  come  to  be  a  whole  one  to 
me  from  the  repeating  in  each  one  that  sometime  I  come  to  be  under- 
standing. Listening  to  repeating  is  often  irritating,  listening  to  repeat- 
ing can  be  dulling,  always  repeating  is  all  of  living,  everything  in  a  being 
is  always  repeating,  always  more  and  more  listening  to  repeating  gives 
to  me  completed  understanding.  Each  one  slowly  comes  to  be  a  whole 
one  to  me.  Each  one  slowly  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  in  me. 

In  the  beginning  then  learning  and  thinking  and  talking  and  feeling 
and  loving  and  working  in  me  mostly  was  not  bottom  being  in  me. 
Slowly  it  came  out  in  me  the  feeling  for  living  in  repeating  that  now  by 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  245 

listening  and  watching  and  feeling  everything  coming  out  of  each  one 
and  always  repeating  the  whole  one  gives  to  me  completed  understand- 
ing. 

There  was  a  time  when  I  was  questioning,  always  asking,  when  I 
was  talking,  wondering,  there  was  a  time  when  I  was  feeling,  thinking 
and  all  the  time  then  I  did  not  know  repeating,  I  did  not  see  or  hear  or 
feel  repeating.  There  was  a  long  time  then  when  there  was  nothing  in 
me  using  the  bottom  loving  repeating  being  that  now  leads  me  to  know- 
ing. Then  I  was  attacking,  questioning,  wondering,  thinking,  always  at 
the  bottom  was  loving  repeating  being,  that  was  not  then  there  to  my 
conscious  being.  Sometime  there  will  be  written  a  long  history  of  such 
a  beginning. 

Always  then  there  was  there  a  recognition  of  the  thing  always  re- 
peating, the  being  in  each  one,  and  always  then  thinking,  feeling,  talk- 
ing, living,  was  not  of  this  real  being.  Slowly  I  came  to  hear  repeating. 
More  and  more  then  I  came  to  listen,  now  always  and  always  I  listen  and 
always  now  each  one  comes  to  be  a  whole  one  in  me. 


Sometimes  in  listening  to  a  conversation  which  is  very  important  to 
two  men,  to  two  women,  to  two  men  and  women,  sometime  then  it  is 
a  wonderful  thing  to  see  how  each  one  always  is  repeating  everything 
they  are  saying  and  each  time  in  repeating,  what  each  one  is  saying  has 
more  meaning  to  each  one  of  them  and  so  they  go  on  and  on  and  on  and 
on  repeating  and  always  to  some  one  listening,  repeating  is  a  very  won- 
derful thing.  There  are  many  of  them  who  do  not  live  in  each  repeating 
each  repeating  coming  out  of  them  but  always  repeating  is  interesting. 
Repeating  is  what  I  am  loving.  Sometimes  there  is  in  me  a  sad  feeling 
for  all  the  repeating  no  one  loving  repeating  is  hearing,  it  is  like  any 
beauty  that  no  one  is  seeing,  it  is  a  lovely  thing,  always  some  one  should 
be  knowing  the  meaning  in  the  repeating  always  coming  out  of  women 
and  of  men,  the  repeating  of  the  being  in  them.  So  then. 

Every  one  is  a  brute  in  her  way  or  his  way  to  some  one,  every  one 
has  some  kind  of  sensitiveness  in  them. 


246  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

Some  feel  some  kinds  of  things  others  feel  other  kinds  of  things. 
Mostly  every  one  feels  some  kinds  of  things.  The  way  some  things  touch 
some  and  do  not  touch  other  ones  and  kinds  in  men  and  women  then 
I  will  now  begin  to  think  a  little  bit  about  describing.  To  begin  then. 

I  am  thinking  it  is  very  interesting  the  relation  of  the  kind  of  things 
that  touch  men  and  women  with  the  kind  of  bottom  nature  in  them,  the 
kind  of  being  they  have  in  them  in  every  way  in  them,  the  way  they  react 
to  things  which  may  be  different  from  the  way  they  feel  them. 

I  am  thinking  very  much  of  feeling  things  in  men  and  women.  As 
I  was  saying  every  one  is  a  brute  in  her  way  or  his  way  to  some  one,  every 
one  has  some  kind  of  sensitiveness  in  them.  Mostly  every  one  has  some 
inner  way  of  feeling  in  them,  almost  every  one  has  some  way  of  reacting 
to  stimulus  in  them.  This  is  not  always  the  same  thing.  These  things 
have  many  complications  in  them. 

I  am  beginning  now  a  little  a  description  of  three  women,  Miss  Dou- 
nor,  Miss  Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern.  I  am  beginning  now  a  little  a  real- 
isation of  the  way  each  one  of  them  is  in  her  way  a  brute  to  some  one, 
each  one  has  in  her  way  a  kind  of  sensitiveness  in  being.  This  is  now 
some  description  of  each  one  of  the  three  of  them  Miss  Dounor,  Miss 
Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern. 

In  listening  to  a  conversation,  as  I  was  saying,  repeating  of  each  one 
and  the  gradual  rising  and  falling  and  rising  again  of  realisation  is  very 
interesting.  This  is  now  some  description  of  the  three  women  and  as  I 
was  saying  of  the  sensitiveness  in  each  one  of  them  to  some  things  and 
the  insensitiveness  to  other  things  and  the  bottom  nature  in  them  and 
the  kinds  of  repeating  in  them  and  the  bottom  nature  and  the  other  na- 
tures mixed  with  the  bottom  nature  in  each  one  of  them. 

Sensitiveness  to  something,  understanding  anything,  feeling  any- 
thing, that  is  very  interesting  to  understand  in  each  one.  How  much, 
when  and  where  and  how  and  when  not  and  where  not  and  how  not 
they  are  feeling,  thinking,  understanding.  To  begin  again  then  with 
feeling  anything. 

Mostly  every  one  is  a  brute  in  her  way  or  his  way  to  some  one,  mostly 
every  one  has  some  kind  of  sensitiveness  in  them. 

Mostly  every  one  can  have  some  kind  of  feeling  in  them,  very  many 
men  and  very  many  women  can  have  some  understanding  in  them  of 
some  kind  of  thing  by  the  kind  of  being  sensitive  to  some  kind  of  im- 
pression that  they  have  in  them. 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  247 

Some  kinds  of  men  and  women  have  a  way  of  having  sensation  from 
some  things  and  other  men  and  women  have  it  in  them  to  be  able  to  be 
impressionable  to  other  kinds  of  things.  Some  men  and  some  women 
have  very  much  of  sensitive  being  in  them  for  the  kind  of  thing  they  can 
be  feeling,  they  can  then  be  very  loving,  or  very  trembly  from  the  abun- 
dant delicate  fear  in  them,  or  very  attacking  from  the  intensity  of  the 
feeling  in  them,  or  very  mystic  in  their  absorption  of  feeling  which  is 
then  all  of  them.  There  are  some  men  and  women  having  in  them  very 
much  weakness  as  the  bottom  in  them  and  watery  anxious  feeling,  and 
sometimes  nervous  anxious  feeling  then  in  them  and  sometimes  stub- 
born  feeling  then  in  them.  There  are  some  who  have  vague  or  vacant 
being  as  the  bottom  in  them  and  it  is  very  hard  to  know  with  such  ones 
of  them  what  feeling  they  have  ever  in  them  and  there  are  some  with 
almost  intermittent  being  in  them  and  it  is  very  hard  to  tell  with  such 
of  them  what  kind  of  thing  gives  to  them  a  feeling,  what  kind  of  feeling 
they  ever  have  really  in  them.  As  I  was  saying  mostly  every  one  some- 
times feels  something,  some  one,  is  understanding  something,  some  one, 
has  some  kind  of  sensitiveness  in  them  to  something,  to  some  one,  mostly 
every  one. 

As  I  was  saying  some  men  and  some  women  have  very  much  of  sen- 
sitive being  in  them  for  something  that  can  give  to  them  real  feeling. 
They  can  then,  some  of  these  of  them,  when  they  are  filled  full  then  of 
such  feeling,  they  can  then  be  completely  loving,  completely  believing, 
they  can  then  have  a  trembling  awed  being  in  them,  they  can  have  then 
abundant  trembly  feeling  in  them,  they  can  then  be  so  full  up  then  with 
the  feeling  in  them  that  they  are  a  full  thing  and  action  has  no  place  then 
in  them,  they  are  completely  then  a  feeling,  there  are  then  men  and 
women,  there  are  then  women  and  men  who  have  then  this  finely  sensi- 
tive completed  feeling  that  is  sometime  all  them  and  perhaps  Cora  Dou- 
nor  was  one  of  such  of  them.  Perhaps  she  was  one  of  them  and  was  such 
a  one  in  loving  Phillip  Redfern.  Perhaps  that  was  the  whole  being  she 
had  in  her  then. 

Each  one  as  I  am  saying  has  it  in  them  to  feel  more  or  less,  sometime, 
something,  almost  certainly  each  one  sometime  has  some  capacity  for 
more  or  less  feeling  something.  Some  have  in  them  always  and  very 
little  feeling,  some  have  some  feeling  and  much  nervous  being  always  in 
them,  some  have  as  a  bottom  to  them  very  much  weakness  and  eagerness 
together  then  and  they  have  then  such  of  them  some  sensitiveness  in 


248  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

them  to  things  coming  to  them  but  often  after  they  are  then  full  up  with 
nervous  vibrations  and  then  nothing  can  really  touch  them  and  then  they 
can  have  in  them  nervous  vibratory  movement  in  them,  anxious  feeling 
in  them  and  sometimes  stubborn  feeling  then  in  them  and  then  nothing 
can  touch  them  and  they  are  all  this  being  then  this  nervous  vibratory 
quivering  and  perhaps  Mrs.  Redfern  was  such  a  one  Mrs.  Redfern  who 
had  been  Martha  Hersland  and  was  married  now  to  Phillip  Redfern  and 
had  come  to  Farnham  and  had  there  seen  Phillip  Redfern  come  to  know 
Miss  Dounor  and  had  been  then  warned  to  take  care  of  him  by  the  dean 
of  Farnham  Miss  Charles.  She  never  knew  then,  Mrs.  Redfern  never 
knew  then  that  she  would  not  ever  again  have  him,  have  Redfern  again. 
This  never  could  come  to  be  real  knowledge  in  her.  She  was  always  then 
and  later  always  working  at  something  to  have  him  again  and  that  was 
there  always  in  her  to  the  end  of  him  and  of  her.  There  will  be  a  little 
more  description  of  her  written  in  the  history  of  the  ending  of  the  living 
in  her  father,  in  the  history  of  the  later  living  of  her  brother  Alfred  Hers- 
land who  now  just  when  her  trouble  was  commencing  was  just  then 
marrying  Julia  Dehning,  in  the  history  of  her  brother  David  Hersland 
her  younger  brother.  More  description  of  her  will  be  part  of  the  history 
of  the  ending  of  the  existing  of  the  Hersland  family.  There  will  be  very 
much  history  of  this  ending  of  all  of  them  of  the  Hersland  family  written 
later. 

The  dean  Miss  Charles  was  very  different  frotn  either  Miss  Dounor 
or  Mrs.  Redfern.  She  had  it  in  her  to  have  her  own  way  of  feeling  things 
touching  her,  mostly  there  was  in  her  less  reactive  than  self-directive 
action  in  her  than  there  was  in  the  two  women  who  were  just  then  con- 
cerning her,  Miss  Dounor  and  Mrs.  Redfern. 

It  is  hard  to  know  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  enjoying  anything, 
whether  they  are  knowing  they  are  giving  pain  to  some  one,  whether 
they  were  planning  that  thing.  It  is  hard  to  know  such  things  in  any 
one  when  they  are  telling  when  they  are  not  telling  to  any  one  what  they 
know  inside  them.  It  is  hard  telling  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  en- 
joying a  thing,  whether  they  know  that  they  are  hurting  some  one, 
whether  they  have  been  planning  the  acting  they  have  been  doing.  It 
is  hard  telling  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  enjoying  anything,  whether 
they  know  that  they  are  hurting  any  one,  whether  they  have  been  plan- 
ning the  acting  they  are  doing.  It  is  very  hard  then  to  know  anything 
of  the  being  in  any  one,  it  is  hard  then  to  know  the  being  in  many  men 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  249 

and  in  many  women,  it  is  hard  then  to  know  the  being  and  the  feeling  in 
any  man  or  in  any  woman.  It  is  hard  to  know  it  if  they  tell  you  all  they 
know  of  it.  It  is  hard  to  know  it  if  they  do  not  tell  you  what  they  know 
of  it  in  it.  Miss  Cora  Dounor  then  could  do  some  planning,  could  do  some 
hurting  with  it,  that  is  certain.  This  is  perhaps  surprising  to  some,  read- 
ing. To  begin  then  with  her  feeling  and  her  being  and  her  acting. 

As  I  am  saying  she  had  it  in  her  to  be  compounded  of  beautiful  sen- 
sitive being,  of  being  able  to  be  in  a  state  of  being  completely  possessed 
by  a  wonderful  feeling  of  loving  and  that  was  then  the  whole  of  the 
being  that  was  being  then  in  her  and  then  it  came  to  be  in  her  that  she 
could  be  hurting  first  Miss  Charles  and  then  Mrs.  Redfern,  then  Miss 
Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern  by  planning.  This  is  then  the  being  in  her 
this  that  I  am  now  with  very  much  complication  slowly  realising,  not 
yet  completely  realising,  not  yet  completely  ready  to  be  completely  de- 
scribing, beginning  now  to  be  describing.  The  dean  Miss  Charles  was 
a  very  different  person,  she  was  of  the  dependent  independent  kind  of 
them.  To  understand  the  being  in  her  there  must  be  now  a  little  realisa- 
tion of  the  way  beginning  is  in  very  many  persons  having  in  them  a 
nature  that  is  self  growing  and  a  nature  that  is  reacting  to  stimulation 
and  that  have  it  in  them  to  have  these  two  natures  acting  in  not  very 
great  harmony  inside  them.  Mrs.  Redfern  as  I  was  saying  in  a  long  de- 
scription that  has  been  already  written  was  a  very  different  kind  of 
person  from  Miss  Dounor  and  Miss  Charles.  These  are  then  the  three 
of  them  that  were  struggling  and  each  of  them  had  in  them  their  own 
ways  of  being  brutal,  hurting  some  one,  had  each  of  them  their  own 
way  of  being  sensitive  to  things  and  people  near  them. 

Sometimes  I  am  almost  despairing.  Yes  it  is  very  hard,  almost  im- 
possible I  am  feeling  now  in  my  despairing  feeling  to  have  completely 
a  realising  of  the  being  in  any  one,  when  they  are  telling  it  when  they  are 
not  telling  it,  it  is  so  very  very  hard  to  know  it  completely  in  one  the  being 
in  one.  I  know  the  being  in  Miss  Dounor  that  I  am  beginning  describing, 
I  know  the  being  in  Miss  Charles  that  I  am  soon  going  to  be  beginning 
describing,  I  know  the  being  in  Mrs.  Redfern,  I  have  been  describing  the 
being  in  that  one.  I  know  the  being  in  each  one  of  these  three  of  them 
and  I  am  almost  despairing  for  I  am  doubting  if  I  am  knowing  it 
poignantly  enough  to  be  really  knowing  it,  to  be  really  knowing  the 
being  in  any  one  of  the  three  of  them.  Always  now  I  am  despairing.  It 
is  a  very  melancholy  feeling  I  have  in  me  now  I  am  despairing  about 


250  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

really  knowing  the  complete  being  of  any  one  of  each  one  of  these  three 
of  them  Miss  Dounor  and  Miss  Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern. 

Miss  Dounor  as  I  was  saying  was  to  Redfern  the  most  complete  thing 
4 of  gentleness  and  intelligence  he  could  think  of  ever  seeing  in  anybody 
who  was  living,  Miss  Dounor  had  it  to  have  in  her  the  complete  thing 
of  gentleness,  of  beauty  in  sensitiveness,  in  completeness  of  intelligent 
sensitiveness  in  completely  loving.  She  was  the  complete  thing  then  of 
gentleness  and  sensitiveness  and  intelligence  and  she  had  it  as  a  com- 
plete thing  gentleness  and  sensitiveness  and  intelligence  in  completely 
loving.  It  was  in  her  complete  in  loving,  complete  in  creative  loving,  it 
was  then  completed  being,  it  was  then  completely  in  her  completely 
loving  Phillip  Redfern.  And  always  to  the  ending ~of  his  living  in  all  the 
other  loving  and  other  troubling  and  the  other  enjoying  of  men  and 
women  in  him  he  was  faithful  to  the  thing  she  had  been,  was  and  would 
be  to  him  the  completed  incarnation  of  gentleness  and  sensitiveness  and 
intelligence,  gentle  intelligence  and  intelligent  sensitiveness  and  all  to 
the  point  of  completely  creative  loving  that  was  to  him  the  supreme 
thing  in  all  living.  Miss  Dounor  was  then  completely  what  Redfern 
found  her  to  him,  she  was  of  them  of  the  independent  dependent  kind 
of  them  who  have  sensitive  being  to  the  point  of  creative  being,  of  attack- 
ing, of  creative  loving,  creative  feeling,  of  sometimes  creative  thinking 
and  writing.  She  was  then  such  a  one  and  completely  then  this  one  and 
she  had  in  her  completely  sensitive  being  to  the  point  of  attacking.  She 
could  have  in  her  a  planning  of  attacking  and  this  came  to  be  in  her  from 
the  completeness  of  sensitive  creative  loving  that  she  had  then  in  her 
then  when  she  was  knowing  Phillip  Redfern. 

Perhaps  she  was  not  of  this  kind  of  them.  Perhaps  she  was  at  the 
bottom,  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them.  I  think  she  was  of  the  resisting 
kind  of  them  and  so  she  needed  to  own  the  one  she  needed  for  loving, 
so  she  could  do  resisting  to  planning  making  an  attacking.  I  am  almost 
despairing,  yes  a  little  I  am  realising  the  being  in  Miss  Dounor  and  in 
Miss  Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern,  but  I  am  really  almost  despairing,  I 
have  really  in  me  a  very  very  melancholy  feeling,  a  very  melancholy 
being,  I  am  really  then  despairing. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  the  kind  of  men  and  women  that  I  speak  of  and 
have  spoken  of  as  the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them.  I  will  now 
tell  a  little  about  what  I  mean  by  self  growing  activity  in  such  of  them 
and  reactive  activity  in  such  of  them.  As  I  was  saying  a  long  time  back 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  251 

when  I  was  describing  the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them,  reac- 
tion is  not  poignant  in  them  unless  it  enters  into  them  the  stimulation 
is  lost  in  them  and  so  sets  it,  the  mass,  in  motion,  it  is  not  as  in  the  other 
kind  of  them  who  have  it  to  have  a  reactive  emotion  to  be  as  poignant 
as  a  sensation  as  is  the  case  in  the  independent  dependent  kind  of  them. 
Miss  Charles  then  as  I  was  saying  was  of  the  kind  of  them  where  reac- 
tion to  have  meaning  must  be  a  slow  thing,  but  she  had  quick  reactions 
as  mostly  all  of  them  of  this  kind  of  them  have  them  and  those  were  in 
her  mostly  attacking  being  as  is  very  common  in  those  having  in  them 
dependent  independent  being. 

It  is  so  very  confusing  that  I  am  beginning  to  have  in  me  despairing 
melancholy  feeling.  Mrs.  Redfern  as  I  was  saying  was  of  the  independent 
dependent  kind  of  them  and  being  in  her  was  never  really  attacking,  it 
was  mostly  never  active  into  forward  movement  it  was  incessantly  in 
action  as  being  in  a  state  of  most  continual  nervous  agitation.  They 
were  then  very  different  in  their  being  the  three  of  them  Miss  Dounor 
and  Miss  Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern  and  they  had  each  one  of  them 
their  own  way  of  hurting  the  other  ones  in  their  then  living,  of  having 
in  them  sensitiveness  to  something. 

It  is  hard  to  know  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  enjoying  anything, 
whether  they  are  feeling  something,  whether  they  are  knowing  they 
are  giving  pain  to  some  one,  whether  they  were  planning  that  thing.  It 
is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know  such  things  in  any  one  any  one  is  know- 
ing, very  difficult  even  when  they  are  telling  that  one  all  the  feeling  they 
have  in  them,  a  very  difficult  thing  when  they  are  not  telling  anything. 
It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  tell  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  enjoying 
a  thing,  whether  they  know  that  they  are  hurting  some  one,  whether 
they  have  been  planning  the  acting  they  have  been  doing.  It  is  a  very 
difficult  thing  to  know  anything  of  the  being  in  any  one,  it  is  a  very  diffi- 
cult thing  to  know  the  being  in  any  one  if  they  tell  you  all  that  they 
themselves  know  of  it  as  they  live  it,  if  they  themselves  tell  you  nothing 
at  all  about  it.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know  the  being  in  any  one. 
It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know  whether  any  one  is  feeling  a  thing, 
enjoying  a  thing,  knowing  that  they  are  hurting  some  one,  planning 
that  thing,  planning  anything  they  are  doing  in  their  living.  It  is  a  diffi- 
cult thing  to  know  the  being  in  any  one  if  that  one  tells  to  any  one  com- 
pletely all  that  that  one  has  in  them  of  telling,  it  is  a  very  difficult  thing 
to  know  the  being  in  any  one  if  they  are  not  telling  any  one  anything 


252  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

that  they  can  have  as  telling  in  them.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know 
it  of  any  one  the  being  in  them,  it  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  tell  it  of  any 
one  what  they  are  feeling,  whether  they  are  enjoying,  whether  they  are 
knowing  that  they  are  hurting  some  one,  whether  they  had  been  plan- 
ning doing  that  thing.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know  these  things  in 
anyone,  it  is  a  difficult  thing  if  that  one  is  telling  everything  they  can 
be  telling,  if  that  one  is  telling  nothing.  It  is  certainly  a  difficult  thing  to 
know  it  of  any  one  whether  they  have  in  them  a  kind  of  feeling,  whether 
they  have  in  them  at  some  time  any  realisation  that  they  are  hurting 
some  one,  whether  they  had  planned  doing  that  thing. 

Miss  Dounor  had  come  to  live  with  Miss  Charles,  they  had  come  to 
know  each  other  in  the  way  that  it  was  natural  for  each  one  of  them  to 
know  the  other  one  of  them.  The  two  of  them  then  had  come  to  know 
Mrs.  Redfern.  They  both  had  come  then  each  in  their  way  to  know  her 
and  to  feel  her  and  to  have  an  opinion  of  her. 

Miss  Dounor  had  this  being  in  her.  She  could  have  some  planning 
in  her,  this  came  from  the  completeness  of  pride  in  her.  This  now  comes 
to  be  clearer,  that  she  had  as  completely  pride  in  her  as  sensitiveness  and 
intelligent  gentleness  inside  her.  She  had  in  her  pride  as  sensitive,  as 
intelligent,  as  complete  as  the  loving  being  in  her  when  she  was  loving 
Redfern.  She  had  in  her  pride  as  sensitive,  as  intelligent,  as  complete 
as  the  being  ever  in  her.  She  had  always  had  in  her  a  pride  as  complete, 
as  intelligent,  as  sensitive  as  the  complete  being  of  her.  She  had  in  her 
a  pride  as  intelligent,  as  sensitive  as  complete  as  the  being  in  her.  This 
made  it  that  she  had  planning  in  her,  this  made  attacking  sometimes  in 
her.  This  never  made  any  action  in  her  toward  a  lover,  this  gave  to  her 
a  power  of  planning  and  this  was  in  her  and  she  could  be  wonderfully 
punishing  some  around  her.  This  could  be  turned  into  melodrama  if 
the  intelligence  in  her  had  not  been  so  gentle  and  so  fine  in  her,  this  in 
many  who  are  like  her  is  a  melodrama.  In  her  it  made  her  able  to  do 
some  planning  against  some  to  punish  them  not  for  interfering  but  for 
existing  and  so  claiming  something  that  entirely  belonged  to  her.  What 
was  in  Redfern  to  him  himself  a  weakness  in  him  was  to  her  a  heroic 
thing  to  be  defending.  Pride  was  in  her  then  as  delicate,  as  gentle,  as 
intelligent  as  sensitive  as  complete  as  the  being  in  her.  This  is  now  more 
description  of  her.  This  is  now  some  description  of  the  way  she  could 
be  hurting  another,  how  she  could  be  feeling  another,  how  she  could 
have  planning  in  her,  how  she  did  have  planning  in  her.  This  is  now 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  253 

more  description  of  her  and  the  being  in  her.  I  am  now  a  little  under- 
standing the  whole  of  her,  I  have  in  me  still  now  a  little  melancholy 
feeling. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them  as  I 
was  saying. 

Everybody  is  perfectly  right.  Everybody  has  their  own  being  in  them. 
Some  say  it  of  themselves  in  their  living,  I  am  as  I  am  and  I  know  I 
will  never  be  changing.  Mostly  every  one  is  perfectly  right  in  living. 
That  is  a  very  pleasant  feeling  to  be  having  about  every  one  in  the 
living  of  every  one.  Mostly  not  very  many  have  that  pleasant  feeling 
that  everybody  is  as  they  are  and  they  will  not  be  very  much  changing 
in  them  and  everybody  is  right  in  their  living.  It  is  a  very  pleasant  feel- 
ing, knowing  every  one  is  as  they  are  and  everybody  is  right  in  their 
living.  Miss  Dounor  was  as  she  was  and  she  was  not  ever  changing,  Miss 
Charles  was  as  she  was  and  was  not  ever  changing.  Mrs.  Redfern  was  as 
she  was  and  always  she  wanted  to  be  changing  and  always  she  was 
trying. 

Miss  Dounor  as  I  was  saying  was  as  she  was  all  her  living  and  was  not 
really  ever  changing  and  she  was  very  right  in  her  living  and  she  was  very 
complete  in  her  being  and  her  pride  was  as  complete  in  her  as  her  being 
and  so  she  could  be  planning  her  conviction  of  how  far  Mrs.  Redfern 
should  not  go  in  presumption,  how  far  Miss  Charles  should  not  go  in 
her  interfering,  how  completely  Phillip  Redfern  was  a  saint  in  living  and 
in  her  devotion  and  she  could  carry  out  all  this  in  its  completion.  Mrs. 
Redfern  had  no  understanding  in  desiring.  Philip  Redfern  always 
should  give  her  always  would  give  her  always  would  give  to  every  one 
.anything  she,  anything  they  were  ever  asking.  This  was  the  being  in  him. 
Asking  was  not  presumption  in  Mrs.  Redfern,  desiring  was  presump- 
tion and  Miss  Dounor  could  then  have  in  her  a  planning  or  perfect  at- 
tacking. Always  Mrs.  Redfern  should  have  anything  she  could  ever  ask 
of  anyone,  that  was  a  very  certain  thing.  Always  Mrs.  Redfern  should 
have,  would  have  from  Mr.  Redfern  anything  she  was  ever  asking  of 
him.  Always  then  to  them  to  Mr.  Redfern  and  to  Miss  Donour  then,  al- 
ways then  Mrs.  Redfern  had  everything  from  Redfern  that  she  ever 
could  ask  of  him.  This  was  then  a  very  certain  thing.  Always  then  Mrs. 
Redfern  had  the  right  to  ask  anything  and  always  she  would  have  any- 
thing she  should  ever  be  asking  of  Phillip  Redfern.  She  had  in  her,  Mrs. 
Redfern,  no  intelligence,  no  understanding,  in  desiring,  Miss  Donour 


254  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

had  in  her  then  a  perfect  power  of  planning  the  attacking  that  should 
keep  Mrs.  Redfern  in  her  place  of  condemnation  for  Mrs.  Redfern  had 
not  in  her  any  intelligence  in  desiring,  she  had  a  right  to  anything  she 
ever  could  be  asking  and  she  would  have  it  given  to  her  then  whenever 
she  asked  for  anything,  Mrs.  Redfern  was  never  changing  in  her  being, 
always  she  was  trying,  always  she  was  without  understanding  in  her 
desiring,  always  Miss  Donour  could  completely  plan  an  attacking  when 
the  time  came  for  such  action  to  restrain  Mrs.  Redfern  in  her  unintelli- 
gent desiring. 

Miss  Dounor  was  then  perfectly  right  in  her  being.  She  was  never 
changing,  she  was  completely  loving,  she  was  completely  understanding 
desiring,  she  was  complete  in  the  pride  of  attacking  in  her  complete  sen- 
sitive, completely  intelligent,  completely  gentle  being,  completely  under- 
stood desiring.  Mrs.  Redfern  had  no  understanding  in  desiring.  Mrs. 
Redfern  always  was  trying  to  change  the  being  she  had  in  her  to  find 
some  way  of  having  intelligent  desiring  in  her,  always  she  would  have 
from  Redfern  anything  she  could  anything  she  should  anything  she 
would  ever  ask  him  to  be  giving  to  her.  That  was  the  being  in  her. 

There  were  three  of  them  then,  Miss  Charles,  Miss  Dounor  and  Mrs. 
Redfern. 

Miss  Charles  was  then  not  permitted  by  Miss  Donour  to  interfere 
with  the  being  inside  her,  ever  at  any  time  in  their  living.  Miss  Charles 
was  never  asking  anything  of  any  one.  Miss  Charles  was  then  one  of 
the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them.  Miss  Charles  was  then  one 
having  general  moral  and  special  moral  aspirations  and  general  unmoral 
desires  and  ambitious  and  special  unmoral  ways  of  carrying  them  into 
realisation  and  there  was  never  inside  her  any  contradiction  and  this 
is  very  common  in  very  many  kinds  of  them  of  men  and  women  and 
later  in  the  living  of  Alfred  Hersland  there  will  be  so  very  much  discus- 
sion of  this  matter  and  now  there  will  be  a  little  explanation  of  the  way 
it  acts  in  the  kind  of  men  and  women  of  which  Miss  Charles  was  one. 

Some  have  it  in  them  some  having  in  them  a  being  like  Miss  Charles 
some  of  such  of  them  have  it  in  them  to  have  it  in  the  beginning  very 
strongly  in  them  that  they  have  generalised  moral  aspirations,  strongly 
detailed  moral  struggles  in  them,  and  then  slowly  in  them  comes  out  in 
them  that  they  are  vigorous  egotistic  sensual  natures,  loving  being,  living, 
writing,  reading,  eating,  drinking,  loving,  bullying,  teasing,  finding  out 
everything  and  slowly  they  get  courage  in  them  to  feel  the  being  in  them 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  255 

they  have  in  them,  slowly  they  get  courage  in  them  to  live  the  being  they 
have  in  them.  Some  like  Miss  Charles  keep  on  having  tranquilly  inside 
them  equally  strongly  in  them  moral  aspiration  general  and  detailed  in 
them,  egotistic  expedient  domineering  as  a  general  aspiration  and  as 
detailed  living  in  them.  Some  are  always  struggling,  some  of  this  kind 
of  them,  some  get  to  have  in  them  that  the  moral  fervor  in  them  in  the 
general  and  specific  expression  of  them  get  to  be  the  whole  of  them, 
some  get  to  have  it  all  fairly  mixed  up  in  them.  This  is  now  a  little  de- 
scription of  how  one  of  them  when  she  was  a  young  one  one  of  the  first 
kind  of  them  who  slowly  came  to  have  the  courage  of  feeling  and  then 
living  the  real  being  came  to  have  the  struggle  as  a  beginning.  Later  then 
came  the  courage  to  be  more  certain  of  the  real  being.  This  is  now  a  little 
piece  of  such  a  description  of  such  beginning  experiencing. 

As  I  was  saying  in  many  of  such  ones  there  is  the  slow  reacting,  slow 
expressing  being  that  comes  more  and  more  in  their  living  to  determine 
them.  There  are  in  many  of  such  ones  aspirations  and  convictions  due 
to  quick  reactions  to  others  around  them,  to  books  they  are  reading,  to 
the  family  tradition,  to  the  lack  of  articulation  of  the  meaning  of  the 
being  in  them  that  makes  them  need  then  to  be  filled  full  with  other  reac- 
tions in  them  so  that  they  will  then  have  something.  Some  then  spend 
all  their  living  struggling  to  adjust  the  being  that  slowly  comes  to  active 
stirring  in  them  to  the  aspirations  they  had  in  them,  some  want  to  create 
their  aspirations  from  the  being  in  them  and  they  have  not  the  courage 
in  them.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  how  much  courage  it  takes  even  to 
buy  a  clock  you  are  very  much  liking  when  it  is  a  kind  of  one  every  one 
thinks  only  a  servant  should  be  owning.  It  is  very  wonderful  how  much 
courage  it  takes  to  buy  bright  colored  handkerchiefs  when  every  one 
having  good  taste  uses  white  ones  or  pale  colored  ones,  when  a  bright 
colored  one  gives  you  so  much  pleasure  you  suffer  always  at  not  having 
them.  It  is  very  hard  to  have  the  courage  of  your  being  in  you,  in  clocks, 
in  handkerchiefs,  in  aspirations,  in  liking  things  that  are  low,  in  any- 
thing. It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  get  the  courage  to  buy  the  kind  of 
clock  or  handkerchiefs  you  are  loving  when  every  one  thinks  it  is  a  silly 
thing.  It  takes  very  much  courage  to  do  anything  connected  with  your 
being  unless  it  is  a  very  serious  thing.  In  some,  expressing  their  being 
needs  courage,  for,  foolish  ways  to  every  one  else,  in  them.  It  is  a  very 
difficult  thing  to  have  courage  to  buy  clocks  and  handkerchiefs  you  are 
liking,  you  are  seriously  liking  and  everybody  thinks  then  you  are  joking. 


256  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  have  courage  for  something  no  one  is  think- 
ing is  a  serious  thing. 

As  I  was  saying  Miss  Charles  had  in  her  what  I  am  calling  de- 
pendent independent  being,  that  is  being  that  is  not  in  its  quicker  re- 
acting poignant  in  its  feeling,  not  having  emotion  then  have  the  keen- 
ness of  sensation  as  those  having  independent  dependent  being  have  it 
in  them.  Miss  Charles  was  then  such  a  one. 

This  is  then  a  very  common  thing  as  I  am  saying.  Miss  Charles  had 
in  her  this  being.  As  I  am  saying  there  are  two  ways  then  of  acting  in  a 
being  like  those  I  have  been  just  describing.  The  acting  from  the  per- 
sonality slowly  developing,  the  acting  from  the  organised  reaction  to 
contemporary  ideals,  tradition,  education  and  nted  of  having,  before 
the  developing  of  their  own  being,  completed  aspiration.  Often  these 
keep  on  as  they  did  in  Miss  Charles  and  no  one  is  knowing  which  is  the 
stronger  way  of  being  in  such  a  one.  Sometimes  there  is  as  I  was  saying 
in  the  beginning  very  much  struggling  and  then  slowly  the  personality 
comes  to  action  and  that  one  drops  away  the  early  filling,  sometimes  the 
early  filling  comes  to  be  the  later  filling  and  in  such  a  one  then  there  is 
not  any  changing.  This  is  quite  interesting  and  will  be  always  more  and 
more  dwelt  upon.  This  then  was  the  being  in  Miss  Charles  and  this 
was  the  meaning  of  her  action  with  Miss  Dounor  and  Mrs.  Redfern  and 
Mr.  Redfern  that  I  have  been  describing. 

There  will  be  now  a  very  little  more  description  of  the  being  in  them, 
of  the  virtuous  feeling  in  them,  of  the  religious  feeling  in  them,  of  the 
sensitiveness  in  them,  of  the  worldly  feeling  in  them,  of  the  succeeding 
and  failing  in  them,  in  each  one  of  the  three  of  them,  Miss  Donour,  Miss 
Charles  and  Mrs.  Redfern. 

Every  one  has  their  own  being  in  them.  Every  one  is  right  in  their 
own  living.  This  is  a  pleasant  feeling  to  have  in  one  about  every  one. 
This  makes  every  one  very  interesting  to  one  having  such  a  feeling  in 
them.  Every  one  is  right  in  their  living.  Each  one  has  her  or  his  own 
being  in  her  or  in  him.  Each  one  is  right  in  the  living  in  her  or  in  him. 
Each  one  of  these  three  of  them  were  right  in  their  living.  This  is  now  a 
little  more  description  of  the  being  in  each  one  of  them. 

It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  know  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are 
enjoying  anything,  whether  they  are  knowing  they  are  giving  pain  to 
some  one,  whether  they  were  planning  that  thing.  It  is  a  very  difficult 
thing  to  know  it  of  any  one  what  is  the  kind  of  thing  they  are  sensitive  to 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  257 

in  living,  what  is  the  bottom  nature  in  them,  whether  they  will  in  living 
be  mostly  succeeding  or  mostly  failing.  It  is  hard  to  know  such  things  in 
any  one  when  they  are  telling  everything  they  have  in  them,  when  they 
are  not  telling  to  any  one  anything  of  what  they  know  inside  them.  It 
is  a  very  difficult  thing  the  telling  it  of  any  one  whether  they  are  enjoying 
a  thing,  whether  they  know  that  they  are  hurting  some  one,  whether  they 
have  been  planning  the  acting  they  are  doing.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing 
then  to  know  anything  of  the  being  in  any  one,  it  is  hard  then  to  know 
the  being  in  many  men  and  in  many  women,  it  is  a  very  difficult  thing 
then  to  know  the  being  and  the  feeling  in  any  man  or  in  any  woman.  It 
is  hard  to  know  it  if  they  tell  you  all  they  know  of  it.  It  is  hard  to  know 
it  if  they  do  not  tell  you  what  they  know  of  it  in  it.  Nevertheless  now 
almost  I  am  understanding  the  being  in  the  three  of  them  Miss  Charles, 
Miss  Dounor  and  Mrs.  Redfern.  There  will  be  now  a  very  little  more 
description  of  the  being  in  them,  of  the  virtuous  feeling  in  them  of  the 
religious  feeling  in  them,  of  the  sensitiveness  in  them,  of  the  worldly 
feeling  in  them,  of  the  succeeding  and  failure  in  them,  in  each  one  of  the 
three  of  them  Miss  Charles,  Miss  Dounor  and  Mrs.  Redfern. 

Miss  Cora  Dounor  could  do  some  planning,  could  do  some  attacking 
with  it,  that  is  certain.  This  is  perhaps  surprising  to  some  reading.  To 
begin  then  with  her  feeling  and  her  being  and  her  doing,  and  her  suc- 
ceeding and  her  failing. 

She  was  then  complete  in  her  loving,  she  had  complete  understanding 
in  desiring  in  all  her  relation  with  Phillip  Redfern,  she  had  completely 
then  the  realisation  later  in  her  that  Phillip  Redfern  was  saintly  and  she 
had  then  in  her  the  complete  possession  of  her  adoration,  the  complete 
understanding  and  possession  of  her  adoration  of  the  saintly  being  in 
him,  and  this  was  then  in  her  a  complete  succeeding  in  being  and  in  liv- 
ing. This  was  not  exactly  virtuous  or  religious  being  in  her  this  was  com- 
plete understanding  desiring  and  complete  intelligent  being  In  her  and 
this  was  in  her  succeeding  in  her  being  and  in  her  living.  This  is  very 
certain.  This  was  in  her  succeeding  in  her  being  and  in  her  living.  She 
had  then  in  her  complete  understanding  in  desiring,  she  had  then  com- 
pletely in  her  completed  intelligence  in  adoration  and  this  was  complete 
being  in  her  and  it  was  a  complete  possession  of  her  and  by  her  and  this 
was  then  completely  succeeding  in  living.  This  is  now  very  certain. 

She  had  then  complete  succeeding  in  her  living  as  I  was  saying,  she 
had  in  her  complete  pride  in  her  and  this  could  be  in  her  strong  sensitive 


258  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

attacking  but  this  was  not  completely  a  succeeding  in  her  living.  As  I 
was  saying  Mrs.  Redfern  had  in  her  no  intelligence  whatever  in  desiring, 
this  was  in  her  then  presumption  in  her  to  Miss  Dounor,  not  the  things 
for  which  Mrs.  Redfern  was  asking,  Mrs.  Redfern  had  the  right  to  ask  for 
anything  or  everything,  it  was  desiring  in  her  that  was  a  thing  Miss 
Dounor  could  rightly  condemn  in  her  and  later  she  made  it  very  certain 
to  every  one  that  Mrs.  Redfern  had  no  intelligence  no  understanding  in 
desiring  and  then  at  last  Mrs.  Redfern  reproached  her  and  so  then  in  a 
sense  Miss  Dounor  was  then  failing  in  her  being  completely  proud  inside 
her.  Mrs.  Redfern  attempting  to  attack  her,  attacking  her  even  though 
failing  in  attacking  was  a  failing  of  the  complete  intelligent  pride  in  the 
understanding  sensitive  planning  attacking  pride  in  Miss  Dounor  and  so 
Miss  Dounor  -in  her  living  was  not  then  completely  succeeding.  This  is 
certain.  There  was  then  complete  succeeding  in  Miss  Dounor  in  her  lov- 
ing in  her  completely  understanding  desiring,  in  her  complete  intelli- 
gence of  adoration,  in  the  completion  of  the  being  then  in  her,  there  was 
in  her  then  some  failing  that  Mrs.  Redfern  could  attack  her  with  going 
on  attempting  desiring.  This  is  all  very  certain. 

Miss  Dounor  held  Miss  Charles  from  really  touching  her  real  being, 
she  did  not  hold  her  from  really  touching  Redfern's  being.  She  never 
recognised  this  failing  in  herself  inside  her  but  it  was  a  failing  of  the  com- 
pleteness of  pride  in  her  and  later  much  later  when  Redfern  was  no 
longer  existing  in  living  it  made  them  separate  from  one  another,  later 
it  in  spots  made  Miss  Dounor  bitter.  Miss  Charles  then  was  not  succeed- 
ing in  keeping  Miss  Dounor  with  her,  she  was  winning  by  not  then  hav- 
ing any  remembrance  in  her  of  the  trouble  she  had  had  with  her/Miss 
Dounor  then  was  succeeding  and  failing  in  some  ways  as  I  have  been  say- 
ing. There  was  real  succeeding  in  her  as  I  have  been  saying,  there  was 
real  failing  in  her  as  I  have  been  saying.  This  is  all  very  certain.  This  has 
been  some  description  of  the  being  in  Miss  Dounor  and  of  her  failing 
and  of  her  succeeding. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  the  kind  of  them  the  kind  of  men  and  women  I 
know  very  well  in  living.  I  know  very  well  all  the  varieties  of  this  kind 
of  them.  In  each  kind  of  them  they  are  nice  ones  they  are  those  that  are 
not  such  nice  ones,  they  are  pleasant  ones  and  they  are  unpleasant  ones, 
they  are  those  having  that  kind  of  being  in  them  so  lightly  it  hardly  then 
makes  them  that  kind  of  them,  there  are  then  some  o£  them  having  that 
being  in  them  that  kind  of  being  in  them  so  concentratedly  it  is  a  won- 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  259 

derful  thing  to  see  them,  to  see  a  kind  of  being  so  complete  in  one  man  or 
in  one  woman.  Miss  Charles  was  of  a  kind  of  being  I  know  very  well  in 
living,  very  well  indeed  in  living,  I  know  very  well  all  the  varieties  of  the 
kind  of  being  that  Miss  Charles  was  in  living  in  all  the  very  many  mil- 
lions ever  living  having  had  or  having  that  kind  of  being  in  them.  Some 
then  of  a  kind  of  being  are  nice  ones,  some  of  that  kind  of  them  are  not 
very  nice  ones,  some  of  that  kind  of  them  are  not  at  all  nice  ones.  Some 
of  a  kind  of  them  are  nice  ones  of  that  kind  of  them  and  then  they  have 
a  mixture  in  them  of  other  kinds  of  being  in  them  and  then  that  one  is 
not  a  nice  one  though  that  one  has  a  nice  kind  of  one  kind  of  being  in 
that  one.  That  often  makes  one  a  very  puzzling  one  to  every  one.  There 
are  then  all  kinds  of  ways  of  being  one  kind  of  them  in  men  and  women. 
Some  are  a  nice  kind  of  a  kind  of  them,  and  some  are  not  a  nice  kind  of 
that  same  kind  of  them.  Sometimes  being  in  one  who  is  a  nice  one  of  a 
kind  of  them  and  then  has  other  things  mixed  up  in  them  is  very  per- 
plexing and  sometimes  no  one  in  such  a  one  ever  comes  to  an  under- 
standing of  that  one.  Well  then  that  is  true  then  that  of  each  kind  of  them 
there  are  nice  ones  and  nice  enough  ones  and  not  very  nice  ones,  and  not 
at  all  nice  ones  and  very  horrid  ones.  This  can  be  in  them  with  any 
strength  or  weakness  of  their  kind  of  being  in  them,  it  is  from  the  mixing 
and  the  accenting  and  relation  of  parts  of  their  kind  of  nature  in  them. 
There  is  one  thing  very  certain  of  each  kind  of  them  of  each  kind  there 
is  of  men  and  women  there  arc  nice  ones  and  then  there  are  not  at  all  nice 
ones  of  them.  And  about  some  mostly  every  one  is  agreeing  and  about 
some  there  is  very  much  disagreeing  and  there  are  very  many  ways  of 
feeling  every  one  and  every  one  has  their  own  being  in  them.  Yes  every 
one  has  their  own  being  in  them  and  yes  every  one  is  right  in  living  their 
own  being  in  them  and  this  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  be  realising  and  it 
is  a  very  pleasant  thing  to  have  inside  one  when  it  comes  to  be  really  in 
one. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  a  kind  of  men  and  women  I  know  very  well  in  all 
the  kind  of  ways  of  being  they  have  in  them.  Miss  Charles  was  one  of  the 
independent  dependent  kind  of  them.  Miss  Charles  was  one  who  was 
herself  a  very  strong  one  in  her  being  and  it  slowly  came  to  be  more  and 
more  filling  inside  her.  Miss  Charles  was  one  who  had  it  in  her  to  have 
reaction  in  her  to  influences  around  her  when  she  was  younger,  to  desires 
in  her,  to  tradition  and  mob  action  and  to  very  many  things  then  and 
they  made  moral  aspiration  in  her  they  made  a  reformer  of  her,  they 


260  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

made  an  aggressive  attacking  person  of  her  and  when  she  was  a  young 
one  all  this  then  almost  completely  filled  her  She  was  as  I  was  saying  of 
the  dependent  independent  kind  in  men  and  women  and  resisting,  slow 
realisation  was  the  bottom  way  of  feeling  and  of  fighting  and  of  under- 
standing in  her.  This  came  then  slowly  to  be  stronger  in  her,  this  made 
then  of  her  one  that  could  be  feeling  and  understanding  brilliant  men 
and  brilliant  women,  brilliant  and  sensitive  men  and  brilliant  and  sensi- 
tive women,  made  her  feel  them  then  and  choose  them  then,  then  when 
her  resisting  sensitive  understanding  had  come  to  be  more  completely  the 
whole  filling  in  her,  then  when  slow  steady  detailed  domination  came  to 
be  then  really  filling  then  inside  her,  then  when  reforming  attacking  was 
changed  in  her  to  the  personal  being  that  then  was  mostly  all  the  filling 
in  her.  It  was  never  all  the  filling  in  her  always  she  had  in  her  a  little  of 
the  special  reforming  attacking  which  was  reaction  in  her,  quick  reaction 
to  things  and  conditions  around  her  and  always  she  had  very  much  in  her 
of  the  generalised  moral  attacking  conviction  that  came  from  the  gener- 
alisation of  her  attacking  and  that  made  a  righteous  moral  person  of  her 
and  this  is  a  very  common  thing  and  later  there  will  be  endless  discussing 
of  the  meaning  of  this  kind  of  moral  being  in  all  kinds  of  men  and 
women,  the  generalised  conviction  and  the  relation  of  it  to  the  concrete 
living,  feeling,  being  in  them,  but  this  will  come  later  in  the  beginning  of 
the  understanding  of  Alfred  Hersland  that  will  pretty  soon  now  com- 
mence to  be  written. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them.  These 
have  it  in  them  then  to  have  when  they  have  quick  reaction  in  them 
that  is  not  a  stirring  from  the  depths  of  them  these  have  it  very  often 
that  this  in  them  is  a  violent  attacking,  often  continuous  bragging,  often 
moral  reforming  conviction,  often  nervous  action  in  them,  often  inces- 
sant talking,  incessant  action,  incessant  attacking  in  them  and  this  is  in 
those  of  them  that  are  the  pure  thing  of  dependent  independent  being 
and  attacking  is  not  their  way  at  all  of  winning  fighting.  There  are  some 
who  have  in  them  resisting  being  and  they  have  in  them  attacking  being 
as  another  nature  in  them  but  that  is  a  different  thing  from  this  thing 
lhat  I  am  now  describing,  from  the  being  in  Miss  Charles.  Miss  Charles 
was  completely  dependent  independent  being,  attacking  was  not  her  way 
of  winning  fighting,  it  was  resisting  as  I  was  saying  in  telling  what  she 
did  to  win  her  fighting  for  Miss  Dounor  with  Redfern.  That  was  then 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  261 

when  she  was  a  young  one  when  she  was  no  longer  a  young  one,  when 
her  own  being  was  almost  completely  then  her  filling,  when  there  was 
in  her  the  generalised  moral  emotion  that  came  from  the  reaction  that 
rilled  her  a  good  deal  in  her  young  living,  reaction  that  made  attacking 
being  then  in  her,  in  her  who  had  in  her  to  have  resisting  as  her  way  of 
winning  fighting,  that  was  then  what  gave  to  her  then  attempting  domi- 
nating every  one  by  attacking  and  this  is  a  very  common  thing  in  those 
having  in  them  dependent  independent  being,  this  is  a  very  common 
thing  in  them  in  their  young  living  when  their  real  way  of  winning 
fighting  has  not  come  yet  to  be  in  them.  I  am  not  saying  that  those  hav- 
ing in  them  dependent  independent  being  cannot  have  in  them  religion 
and  moral  or  reforming  passion  as  the  expression  of  the  being  in  them, 
there  are  very  many  of  them  who  have  it  in  them  as  I  was  saying,  the 
old  man  Hissen  had  it  in  him  and  there  are  very  many  of  them  of  this 
kind  of  them  and  there  are  very  many  of  many  various  kinds  of  them  of 
the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them  that  have  religious  or  virtuous 
or  moral  or  reforming  passion  in  them  as  the  whole  expression  of  the 
being  in  them  but  these  express  this  then  by  resisting  fighting  which  is 
their  way  of  winning  fighting.  As  I  was  saying  there  are  many  having  in 
them  dependent  independent  being,  and  there  are  some  of  them  who 
have  it  in  them  only  when  they  are  younger  ones  and  some  have  it  in 
them  very  strongly  in  them  up  to  their  ending,  there  are  very  many  of 
them  who  have  much  attacking  of  quick  reacting,  much  attacking  in 
bragging,  in  being  quickly  certain  of  everything,  of  being  very  quick  in 
judging  everything  and  these  then  some  of  them  are  mostly  all  filled  up 
with  this  kind  of  reacting  attacking  in  them  which  is  not  in  them  their 
real  way  of  winning  fighting.  This  is  a  very  important  thing  to  know  in 
men  and  women,  a  very  important  thing  to  know  in  them  in  knowing 
them,  in  judging  of  the  power  in  them  of  succeeding  or  of  failing  in  their 
living.  The  independent  dependent  kind  in  men  and  women  can  have 
quick  reaction  that  is  completely  poignant,  that  is  attacking,  in  them, 
that  is  their  real  way  of  winning  fighting.  Those  having  in  them  depend- 
ent independent  nature  in  them  have  not  real  power  in  quick  resisting, 
in  attacking  fighting,  many  of  them  have  this  filling  them  all  their  liv- 
ing, many  of  them  have  this  filling  them  in  their  young  living  when  their 
own  way  of  winning  fighting  is  not  yet  developed  in  them  enough  to 
fill  them,  some  have  almost  nothing  of  this  kind  of  acting  in  them  some 


262  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

of  the  dependent  independent  kind  of  them.  All  this  is  very  important, 
very  very  important,  sometime  there  will  be  very  very  much  description 
of  every  kind  of  being  in  every  kind  of  men  and  women. 

Miss  Charles  was  of  the  kind  of  them  the  kind  of  men  and  women  I 
know  very  well  in  living.  I  know  very  well  all  the  varieties  of  this  kind 
of  them.  Some  of  each  kind  there  is  of  men  and  women  are  very  nice 
ones  of  their  kind  of  them,  some  of  each  kind  there  is  of  men  and  women 
are  not  nice  ones  at  all  of  their  kind  of  them.  Miss  Charles  was  not  a 
very  nice  one,  she  was  not  a  not  nice  one  at  all  of  her  kind  of  them.  Being 
nice  or  not  a  nice  kind  of  one,  a  pleasant  or  unpleasant  kind  of  one  was 
not  in  her  an  important  thing.  This  is  a  very  certain  thing.  She  was  as  I 
was  saying  in  her  younger  living  aggressive  in  hex  detailed  and  general- 
ised conviction  of  morality  and  reformation  and  equalisation.  Later  in 
her  living  she  went  on  in  the  direction  she  had  been  going  but  her 
methods  then  were  from  the  being  in  her  and  that  then  mostly  entirely 
filled  her.  That  made  her  control  everything,  every  one  near  her  by 
steady  resisting  pressure  and  that  was  then  the  way  of  winning  in  her. 
Everything  near  her,  every  one  near  her,  every  detail  of  everything  was 
then  more  or  less  completely  owned  by  her.  She  was  of  the  kind  of  them 
who  own  the  thing  they  need  for  loving.  Later  as  I  was  saying  Miss 
Dounor  left  her,  Miss  Charles  had  a  little  owned  Redfern  almost  and 
Miss  Dounor  many  years  later  left  her  and  Miss  Charles  went  on  always 
to  her  ending  completely  owning  the  college  of  Farnham. 

There  has  been  now  enough  description  of  Miss  Charles.  There  has 
been  enough  description  of  Miss  Dounor.  There  has  been  enough  de- 
scription of  Miss  Dounor  and  of  Miss  Charles.  There  will  be  now  a  very 
little  more  description  of  Mrs.  Redfern. 

At  the  time  of  the  ending  of  the  living  of  the  Redfern's  at  Farnham, 
Alfred  Hersland  was  just  coming  to  his  marrying  of  Julia  Dehning.  The 
Redferns  after  the  ending  of  their  living  at  the  college  of  Farnham  never 
lived  anywhere  together  again.  Mrs.  Redfern  never  understood  this  thing. 
Always  she  was  expecting  it  to  begin  again  their  living  together  until 
after  the  complete  ending  of  being  in  Redfern.  That  made  her  certain 
then  that  they  would  never  live  together  again. 

After  the  ending  of  their  Farnham  living  the  Redferns  never  lived  any- 
where together  again.  Mrs.  Redfern  never  understood  this  thing.  She 
never  knew  that  she  would  not  ever  again  have  him.  This  never  could 
come  to  be  real  knowledge  in  her  and  she  was  always  working  at  some- 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  263 

thing  to  have  him  again  and  that  was  there  always  in  her  to  the  end  of 
him  and  of  her.  First  she  was  travelling  and  studying  and  then  she  was 
working  to  make  some  women  understand  something  and  many  laughed 
at  her  and  always  she  was  full  of  desiring  and  always  she  was  never 
understanding  in  desiring.  When  there  was  the  end  of  her  living  with 
Redfern  her  brother  Alfred  was  just  coming  to  his  marrying  Julia  Dehn- 
ing.  Martha  was  then  travelling  and  studying  and  then  she  came  back 
to  be  with  her  father  and  her  mother  was  weakening  then  and  later  she 
was  dead  and  Mr.  Hersland  lost  his  great  fortune  and  Martha  then  took 
care  of  him.  There  will  be  now  a  little  more  description  of  her  and  then 
of  her  with  him.  There  will  be  a  little  more  description  of  her  written  in 
the  history  of  the  ending  of  the  living  in  her  father,  in  the  history  of  the 
later  living  of  her  brother  Alfred  Hersland,  in  the  history  of  her  brother 
David  Hersland.  More  description  of  her  will  be  part  of  the  history  of 
the  ending  of  the  existing  of  the  Hersland  family.  There  will  be  very 
much  history  of  this  ending  of  all  of  them  of  the  Hersland  family  written 
later. 

There  will  be  now  a  little  more  description  written  of  her  and  of  her 
living  with  her  father  when  she  came  back  to  the  family  living  back  out 
of  her  trouble  after  the  ending  of  the  living  in  Phillip  Redfern. 

After  the  ending  of  the  Redfern's  living  at  Farnham  the  two  of  them, 
Mr.  and  Mrs.  Redfern  never  lived  anywhere  together  again.  Mrs.  Red- 
fern  never  understood  this  thing.  Always  she  was  expecting  it  to  begin 
again,  their  living  together  and  always  she  was  studying  and  preparing 
herself  to  be  a  companion  to  him  in  intellectual  living.  Always  then  she 
was  studying  and  striving  and  travelling  and  working.  And  then  he  was 
dead  and  then  she  knew  they  would  not  live  together  again.  Then  she 
was  certain  of  this  thing. 

That  was  her  living  then  until  he  was  dead  and  she  went  back  to  the 
ten  acre  place  where  then  her  father  and  mother  were  living  and  her 
mother  was  weakening  then  and  a  little  while  later  then  she  died  there 
and  Martha  finished  her  living  staying  with  her  father  who  had  then 
lost  his  great  fortune. 


264  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

Disillusionment  in  living  is  finding  that  no  one  can  really  ever  be  agree- 
ing with  you  completely  in  anything.  Disillusionment  then  in  living  that 
gives  to  very  many  then  melancholy  feeling,  some  despairing  feeling, 
some  resignation,  some  fairly  cheerful  beginning  and  some  a  forgetting 
and  continuing  and  some  a  dreary  trickling  weeping  some  violent  attack- 
ing and  some  a  letting  themselves  do  anything,  disillusion  then  is  really 
finding,  really  realising,  really  being  certain  that  no  one  really  can  com- 
pletely agree  with  you  in  anything,  that,  as  is  very  certain,  not,  those 
fighting  beside  you  or  living  completely  with  you  or  anybody,  really,  can 
really  be  believing  anything  completely  that  you  are  believing.  Really 
realising  this  thing,  completely  realising  this  thing  is  the  disillusionment 
in  living  is  the  beginning  of  being  an  old  man  or -an  old  woman  is  being 
no  longer  a  young  one  no  longer  a  young  man  or  a  young  woman  no 
longer  a  growing  older  young  man  or  growing  older  young  woman. 
This  is  then  what  every  one  always  has  been  meaning  by  living  bringing 
disillusion.  This  is  the  real  thing  of  disillusion  that  no  one,  not  any  one 
really  is  believing,  seeing,  understanding,  thinking  anything  as  you  are 
thinking,  believing,  seeing,  understanding  such  a  thing.  This  is  then 
what  disillusion  is  from  living  and  slowly  then  after  failing  again  and 
again  in  changing  some  one,  after  finding  that  some  one  that  has  been 
fighting  for  something,  that  every  one  that  has  been  fighting  something 
beside  you  for  a  long  time  that  each  one  of  them  splits  oft  from  you 
somewhere  and  you  must  join  on  with  new  ones  or  go  on  all  alone  then 
or  be  a  disillusioned  one  who  is  not  any  longer  then  a  young  one.  This 
is  then  disillusionment  in  living  and  sometime  in  the  history  of  David 
Hersland  the  younger  son  in  the  Hersland  family  living  then  in  a  part 
of  Gossols  where  they  alone  of  rich  people  were  living  there  will  be  com- 
pletely a  history  of  the  disillusionment  of  such  a  realising  and  the  dying 
then  of  that  one,  of  young  David  Hersland  then. 

This  is  then  complete  disillusionment  in  living,  the  complete  realisa- 
tion that  no  one  can  believe  as  you  do  about  anything,  so  not  really  any 
single  one  and  to  some  as  I  am  saying  this  is  a  sad  thing,  to  mostly  every 
one  it  is  sometime  a  shocking  thing,  sometimes  a  shocking  thing,  some- 
time a  real  shock  to  them,  to  mostly  every  one  a  thing  that  only  very 
slowly  with  constant  repetition  is  really  a  complete  certain  thing  inside 
to  give  to  them  the  being  that  is  no  longer  in  them  really  young  being. 
This  is  then  the  real  meaning  of  not  being  any  longer  a  young  one  in 
living,  the  complete  realising  that  not  any  one  really  can  believe  what 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  265 

any  other  one  is  believing  and  some  there  are,  enough  of  them,  who 
never  have  completely  such  a  realisation,  they  are  always  hoping  to  find 
her  or  him,  they  are  always  changing  her  or  him  to  fit  them,  they  are 
always  looking,  they  are  always  forgetting  failing  or  explaining  it  by 
something,  they  are  always  going  on  and  on  in  trying.  There  are  a  very 
great  many  of  them  who  are  this  way  to  their  ending.  There  are  a 
very  great  many  who  are  this  way  almost  to  their  very  ending,  there 
are  a  great  many  men  and  women  who  have  sometime  in  them  in  their 
living  complete  disillusion. 

There  is  then  as  I  am  saying  complete  disillusion  in  living,  the  realis- 
ing, completely  realising  that  not  any  one,  not  one  fighting  for  the  same 
thinking  and  believing  as  the  other,  not  any  one  has  the  same  believing 
in  her  or  in  him  that  any  other  one  has  in  them  and  it  comes  then  some- 
time to  most  every  one  to  be  realising  with  feeling  this  thing  and  then 
they  often  stop  having  friendly  feeling  and  then  often  they  begin  again 
but  it  is  then  a  different  thing  between  them,  they  are  old  then  and  not 
young  then  in  their  feeling. 

Young  ones  sometimes  think  they  have  it  in  them,  this  thing,  some 
young  ones  kill  themselves  then,  stop  living  then,  this  is  often  happen- 
ing, young  ones  sometimes,  very  often  even,  think  they  have  in  them  this 
thing  but  they  do  not  have  it  in  them,  mostly  not  any  young  one,  as  a 
complete  realisation,  this  thing,  they  have  it  in  them  and  it  is  sometimes, 
very  often  then  an  agony  to  them,  some  of  them  kill  themselves  or  are 
killed  then,  but  really  mostly  not  any  of  them  have  really  realised  the 
thing,  they  may  be  dead  from  this  thing,  they  have  not  realised  the  thing, 
it  has  been  an  awful  agony  in  them,  they  have  not  really  grasped  the 
thing  as  having  general  human  meaning,  it  has  been  a  shock  to  them, 
it  may  perhaps  even  have  killed  completely  very  completely  some  of 
them,  mostly  then  a  young  one  has  not  really  such  a  thing  in  them,  this 
is  pretty  nearly  certain,  later  there  will  be  much  description  of  disillusion- 
ment in  the  being  of  David  Hersland  who  was  always  in  his  living  as 
I  was  saying  trying  to  be  certain  from  clay  to  day  in  his  living  what  there 
was  in  living  that  could  make  it  for  him  a  completely  necessary  thing. 

This  is  then  a  very  little  description  of  feeling  disillusionment  in  liv- 
ing. There  is  this  thing  then  there  is  the  moment  and  a  very  complete 
moment  to  those  that  have  had  it  when  something  they  have  bought  or 
made  or  loved  or  are  is  a  thing  that  they  are  afraid,  almost  certain,  very 
fearful  that  no  one  will  think  it  a  nice  thing  and  then  some  one  likes 


266  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

that  thing  and  this  then  is  a  very  wonderful  feeling  to  know  that  some 
one  really  appreciates  the  thing.  This  is  a  very  wonderful  thing,  this  is 
a  thing  which  I  will  now  be  illustrating. 

Disillusionment  in  living  is  the  finding  out  nobody  agrees  with  you 
not  those  that  are  and  were  fighting  with  you.  Disillusionment  in  living 
is  the  finding  out  nobody  agrees  with  you  not  those  that  are  fighting  for 
you.  Complete  disillusionment  is  when  you  realise  that  no  one  can  for 
they  can't  change.  The  amount  they  agree  is  important  to  you  until  the 
amount  they  do  not  agree  with  you  is  completely  realised  by  you.  Then 
you  say  you  will  write  for  yourself  and  strangers,  you  will  be  for  yourself 
and  strangers  and  this  then  makes  an  old  man  or  an  old  woman  of  you. 

This  is  then  one  thing,  another  thing  is  the  perfect  joy  of  finding  some 
one,  any  one  really  liking  something  you  are  liking,  making,  doing, 
being.  This  is  another  thing  and  a  very  pleasant  thing,  sometimes  not  a 
pleasant  thing  at  all.  That  depends  on  many  things,  on  some  thing. 

It  is  a  very  strange  feeling  when  one  is  loving  a  clock  that  is  to  every 
one  of  your  class  of  living  an  ugly  and  a  foolish  one  and  one  really  likes 
such  a  thing  and  likes  it  very  much  and  liking  it  is  a  serious  thing,  or  one 
likes  a  colored  handkerchief  that  is  very  gay  and  every  one  of  your  kind 
of  living  thinks  it  a  very  ugly  or  a  foolish  thing  and  thinks  you  like  it  be- 
cause it  is  a  funny  thing  to  like  it  and  you  like  it  with  a  serious  feeling, 
or  you  like  eating  something  and  liking  it  is  a  childish  thing  to  every 
one  or  you  like  something  that  is  a  dirty  thing  and  no  one  can  really  like 
that  thing  or  you  write  a  book  and  while  you  write  it  you  are  ashamed 
for  every  one  must  think  you  are  a  silly  or  a  crazy  one  and  yet  you  write 
it  and  you  are  ashamed,  you  know  you  will  be  laughed  at  or  pitied  by 
every  one  and  you  have  a  queer  feeling  and  you  are  not  very  certain  and 
you  go  on  writing.  Then  some  one  says  yes  to  it,  to  something  you  are 
liking,  or  doing  or  making  and  then  never  again  can  you  have  com- 
pletely such  a  feeling  of  being  afraid  and  ashamed  that  you  had  then 
when  you  were  writing  or  liking  the  thing  and  not  any  one  had  said  yes 
about  the  thing.  In  a  way  it  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  like  anything,  to 
do  anything.  You  can  never  have  again  either  about  something  you  have 
done  or  about  something  any  one  else  has  done  the  same  complete  feel- 
ing if  some  one  else  besides  the  first  one  sees  it,  some  other  one  if  you  have 
made  it,  yourself  if  you  have  understood  something,  you  can  never  again 
have  the  complete  feeling  of  recognition  that  you  have  then.  You  can 
have  very  many  kinds  of  feelings  you  can  only  alone  and  with  the  first 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  267 

one  have  the  perfect  feeling  of  not  being  almost  completely  filled  with 
being  ashamed  and  afraid  to  show  something  to  like  something  with  a 
really  serious  feeling. 

I  have  not  been  very  clear  in  this  telling,  it  will  be  clearer  in  the 
description  of  master  and  schools  in  living  and  in  working,  and  in  paint- 
ing and  in  writing  and  in  everything. 

It  is  a  very  queer  thing  this  not  agreeing  with  any  one.  It  would  seen! 
that  where  we  are  each  of  us  always  telling  and  repeating  and  explain- 
ing and  doing  it  again  and  again  that  some  one  would  really  understand 
what  the  other  one  is  always  repeating.  But  in  loving,  in  working,  in 
everything  it  is  always  the  same  thing.  In  loving  some  one  is  jealous, 
really  jealous  and  it  would  seem  an  impossible  thing  to  the  one  not  un- 
derstanding that  the  other  one  could  have  about  such  a  thing  a  jealous 
feeling  and  they  have  it  and  they  suffer  and  they  weep  and  sorrow  in  it 
and  the  other  one  cannot  believe  it,  they  cannot  believe  the  other  one 
can  really  mean  it  and  sometime  the  other  one  perhaps  comes  to  realise 
it  that  the  other  one  can  really  suffer  in  it  and  then  later  that  one  tries 
to  reassure  the  other  one  the  one  that  is  then  suffering  about  that  thing 
and  the  other  one  the  one  that  is  receiving  such  reassuring  says  then,  did 
you  think  I  ever  could  believe  this  thing,  no  I  have  no  fear  of  such  a  thing, 
and  it  is  all  puzzling,  to  have  one  kind  of  feeling,  a  jealous  feeling,  and 
not  have  a  fear  in  them  that  the  other  one  does  not  want  them,  it  is  a 
very  mixing  thing  and  over  and  over  again  when  you  are  certain  it  is 
a  whole  one  some  one,  one  must  begin  again  and  again  and  the  only 
thing  that  is  a  help  to  one  is  that  there  is  really  so  little  fundamental 
changing  in  any  one  and  always  every  one  is  repeating  big  pieces  of  them 
and  so  sometimes  perhaps  some  one  will  know  something  and  I  certainly 
would  like  very  much  to  be  that  one  and  so  now  to  begin. 

All  this  leads  again  to  kinds  in  men  and  women.  This  then  will  be 
soon  now  a  description  of  difference  in  men  and  women  morally  and 
intellectually  in  them  between  concrete  acting,  thinking  and  feeling  in 
them  and  generalised  acting,  thinking  and  feeling  in  them. 

Many  women  and  men  have  a  completely  sure  feeling  in  them.  Many 
men  and  women  have  certain  feeling  with  something  inside  them. 

Many  have  a  very  certain  feeling  about  something  inside  them.  Many 
need  company  for  it,  this  is  very  common,  many  need  a  measure  for  it, 
this  will  need  explaining,  some  need  drama  to  support  it,  some  need 
lying  to  help  it,  some  are  not  letting  their  right  hand  know  what  their 


268  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

left  hand  is  doing  with  it,  some  love  it,  some  hate  it,  some  never  are  very 
certain  they  really  have  it,  some  only  think  they  love  it,  some  like  the 
feeling  of  loving  it  they  would  have  if  they  could  have  it.  Some  have  a 
feeling  they  would  have  it  if  they  had  their  life  to  live  over  again  and 
they  sigh  about  it.  Certain  feeling  in  men  and  women  is  very  interesting. 
As  I  was  saying  in  many  there  is  the  slow  reacting,  slow  expressing 
being  that  comes  more  and  more  in  their  living  to  determine  them.  There 
are  in  many  of  such  ones  aspirations  and  convictions  due  to  quick  reac- 
tions to  others  around  them,  to  books  they  are  reading,  to  the  family 
tradition,  to  the  spirit  of  the  age  in  educating,  in  believing,  to  the  lack 
of  power  of  articulating  the  being  in  them  that  makes  them  need  then  to 
be  filled  full  with  other  reactions  in  them  so  that  they  will  then  have 
something.  Some  of  such  of  them  spend  all  their  living  in  adjusting  the 
being  that  comes  to  active  condition  inside  them  in  their  living  to  the 
being  they  have  come  to  be  in  living  from  all  being  that  has  been  affect- 
ing  them  in  all  their  living,  some  of  such  of  them  want  a  little  in  them 
to  create  their  living  from  the  being  inside  them  and  they  have  not  the 
power  in  them  for  this  thing,  they  go  on  then  living  the  being  of  every 
one  that  has  been  making  them.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  how  very  much 
it  has  to  be  in  one,  how  it  needs  to  be  so  strongly  in  one  anything,  how 
much  it  needs  to  be  in  one  anything  so  that  thing  is  a  thing  that  comes 
then  to  be  done,  it  is  a  wonderful  thing  how  very  much  it  needs  to  be  in 
one  anything,  any  little  any  big  thing  so  that  that  thing  will  be  done  by 
that  one.  It  is  a  wonderful  thing  as  I  was  saying  and  I  am  now  repeating, 
it  is  a  wonderful  thing  how  much  a  thing  needs  to  be  in  one  as  a  desire 
in  them  how  much  courage  any  one  must  have  in  them  to  be  doing  any- 
thing if  they  are  a  first  one,  if  it  is  something  no  one  is  thinking  is  a  seri- 
ous thing,  if  it  is  the  buying  of  a  clock  one  is  very  much  liking  and  every- 
body is  thinking  it  an  ugly  or  a  foolish  one  and  the  one  wanting  it  has 
for  it  a  serious  feeling  and  no  one  can  think  that  one  is  buying  it  for  any- 
thing but  as  doing  a  funny  thing.  It  is  a  hard  thing  to  be  loving  something 
with  a  serious  feeling  and  every  one  is  thinking  that  only  a  servant  girl 
could  be  loving  such  a  thing,  it  is  a  hard  thing  then  to  buy  that  thing. 
It  is  a  very  wonderful  thing  how  much  courage  it  takes  to  buy  and  use 
them  and  like  them  bright  colored  handkerchiefs  when  every  one  having 
good  taste  is  using  white  ones  or  pale  colored  ones  when  a  bright  colored 
one  gives  to  the  one  buying  them  so  much  pleasure  that  that  one  suffers 
always  at  not  having  them  when  that  one  has  not  bought  one  of  such  of 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  269 

them.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  have  your  being  in  you  so  that  you 
will  be  doing  something,  anything  you  are  wanting,  having  something 
anything  you  are  wanting  when  you  have  plenty  of  money  for  the  buy- 
ing, in  clocks  in  handkerchiefs,  so  that  you  will  be  thinking,  feeling  any- 
thing that  you  are  needing  feeling,  thinking,  so  that  you  will  be  having 
aspirations  that  are  really  of  a  thing  filling  you  with  meaning,  so  that 
you  will  be  having  really  in  you  in  liking  a  real  feeling  of  satisfaction. 
It  is  very  hard  to  know  what  you  are  liking,  whether  you  are  not  really 
liking  something  that  is  a  low  thing  to  yourself  then,  it  is  a  very  difficult 
thing  to  get  the  courage  to  buy  the  kind  of  clock  or  handkerchiefs  you 
are  loving  when  every  one  thinks  it  is  a  silly  thing,  when  every  one 
thinks  you  are  doing  it  for  the  joke  of  the  thing.  It  is  hard  then  to  know 
whether  you  are  really  loving  that  thing.  It  takes  very  much  courage  to 
do  anything  connected  with  your  being  that  is  not  a  serious  thing.  It 
takes  courage  to  be  doing  a  serious  thing  that  is  connected  with  one's 
being  that  is  certain.  In  some,  expressing  their  being  needs  courage,  in 
foolish  ways,  ways  that  are  foolish  ones  to  every  one  else,  in  them.  It  is 
a  very  difficult  thing  to  have  courage  to  buy  clocks  and  handkerchiefs 
you  are  loving,  you  are  seriously  appreciating,  with  which  you  have  very 
seriously  pleasure  with  enjoying  and  everybody  is  thinking  then  that  you 
are  joking.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  have  courage  for  that  which  no 
one  is  thinking  is  a  serious  thing. 

Some  have  a  measure  in  living  and  some  do  not  have  any  measure  to 
determine  them.  Many  in  their  living  are  determined  by  the  measure  of 
some  one,  they  are  to  themselves  to  be  like  some  one  or  very  near  to 
what  that  one  is  for  them,  they  are  like  some  one  or  are  something  like 
some  one,  they  have  then  a  measure  by  which  they  can  determine  what 
they  are  to  be,  to  do  in  living.  Such  then  are  always  followers  in  living, 
many  of  such  of  them  have  their  own  being  in  them,  all  of  such  of  them 
have  some  being  in  them,  all  of  such  of  them  have  a  measure  that  deter- 
mines them,  they  are  themselves  inside  them,  they  need  only  come  very 
near  doing,  being  some  certain  thing  which  is  established  already  as  a 
standard  for  them  by  some  one  who  did  not  have  any  standard  to  make 
her  or  him  some  one  and  that  one  is  a  master  and  the  others  having  them- 
selves inside  them  and  such  a  one  as  a  measure  for  them  are  schoolmen, 
and  now  there  will  be  very  little  description  of  these  things  in  men  and 
women  for  it  is  something  that  is  important  in  the  being  in  David 
Hersland  the  second  son.  The  important  thing  now  to  be  discussing  is 


270  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

concrete  and  abstract  aspiration,  concrete  and  generalised  action  in  many 
men  and  women  of  very  many  kinds  of  them  and  now  there  will  be  a 
beginning  of  discussing  the  feeling  in  each  one  of  being  a  bad  one,  of 
being  a  good  one,  the  relation  of  aspiration  and  action,  of  generalised 
and  concrete  aspiration  and  action. 

It  happens  very  often  that  a  man  has  it  in  him,  that  a  man  does  some- 
thing, that  he  does  it  very  often,  that  he  does  many  things,  when  he  is 
a  young  one  and  an  older  one  and  an  old  one.  It  happens  very  often  that 
a  man  does  something,  that  a  man  has  something  in  him  and  he  does  a 
thing  again  and  again  in  his  living.  There  was  a  man  who  was  always 
writing  to  his  daughter  that  she  should  not  do  things  that  were  wrong 
that  would  disgrace  him,  she  should  not  do  such  things  and  in  every  let- 
ter that  he  wrote  to  her  he  told  her  she  should  not  do  such  things,  that  he 
was  her  father  and  was  giving  good  moral  advice  to  her  and  always  he 
wrote  to  her  in  every  letter  that  she  should  not  do  things  that  she  should 
not  do  anything  that  would  disgrace  him.  He  wrote  this  in  every  letter 
he  wrote  to  her,  he  wrote  very  nicely  to  her,  he  wrote  often  enough  to 
her  and  in  every  letter  he  wrote  to  her  that  she  should  not  do  anything 
that  was  a  disgraceful  thing  for  her  to  be  doing  and  then  once  she  wrote 
back  to  him  that  he  had  not  any  right  to  write  moral  things  in  letters 
to  her,  that  he  had  taught  her  that  he  had  shown  her  that  he  had  com- 
menced in  her  the  doing  the  things  things  that  would  disgrace  her  and  he 
had  said  then  when  he  had  begun  with  her  he  had  said  he  did  it  so  that 
when  she  was  older  she  could  take  care  of  herself  with  those  who  wished 
to  make  her  do  things  that  were  wicked  things  and  he  would  teach  her 
and  she  would  be  stronger  than  such  girls  who  had  not  any  way  of  know- 
ing better,  and  she  wrote  this  letter  and  her  father  got  the  letter  and  he 
was  a  paralytic  always  after,  it  was  a  shock  to  him  getting  such  a  letter, 
he  kept  saying  over  and  over  again  that  his  daughter  was  trying  to  kill 
him  and  now  she  had  done  it  and  at  the  time  he  got  the  letter  he  was 
sitting  by  the  fire  and  he  threw  the  letter  in  the  fire  and  his  wife  asked 
him  what  was  the  matter  and  he  said  it  is  Edith  she  is  killing  me,  what, 
is  she  disgracing  us  said  the  mother,  no  said  the  father,  she  is  killing  me 
and  that  was  all  he  said  then  of  the  matter  and  he  never  wrote  another 
letter. 

It  happens  very  often  that  a  man  has  it  in  him,  that  a  man  does  some- 
thing, that  he  does  it  very  often  that  he  does  many  things,  when  he 
is  a  young  man,  when  he  is  an  old  man,  when  he  is  an  older  man.  Some 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  271 

kind  of  young  men  do  things  because  they  are  so  good  then  they  want 
every  one  to  be  wise  enough  to  take  care  of  themselves  and  so  they  do 
some  things  to  them.  This  is  very  common  and  these  then  are  very  often 
good  enough  kind  of  young  men  who  are  very  good  men  in  their  living. 
There  will  soon  be  a  little  description  of  one  of  them.  There  are  then 
very  many  men  and  there  is  then  from  the  generalised  virtue  and  con- 
crete action  that  is  from  the  nature  of  them  that  might  make  one  think 
they  were  hypocrites  in  living  but  they  are  not  although  certainly  there 
are  in  living  some  men  wanting  to  deceive  other  men  but  this  is  not  true 
of  this  kind  of  them.  One  of  such  of  these  kind  of  them  had  a  little  boy 
and  this  one,  the  little  son  wanted  to  make  a  collection  of  butterflies  and 
beetles  and  it  was  all  exciting  to  him  and  it  was  all  arranged  then  and 
then  the  father  said  to  the  son  you  are  certain  this  is  not  a  cruel  thing  that 
you  are  wanting  to  be  doing,  killing  things  to  make  collections  of  them, 
and  the  son  was  very  disturbed  then  and  they  talked  about  it  together 
the  two  of  them  and  more  and  more  they  talked  about  it  then  and  then 
at  last  the  boy  was  convinced  it  was  a  cruel  thing  and  he  said  he  would 
not  do  it  and  his  father  said  the  little  boy  was  a  noble  boy  to  give  up 
pleasure  when  it  was  a  cruel  one.  The  boy  went  to  bed  then  and  then 
the  father  when  he  got  up  in  the  early  morning  saw  a  wonderfully  beau- 
tiful moth  in  the  room  and  he  caught  him  and  he  killed  him  and  he 
pinned  him  and  he  woke  up  his  son  then  and  showed  it  to  him  and  he 
said  to  him  "see  what  a  good  father  I  am  to  have  caught  and  killed  this 
one,"  the  boy  was  all  mixed  up  inside  him  and  then  he  said  he  would 
go  on  with  his  collecting  and  that  was  all  there  was  then  of  discussing 
and  this  is  a  little  description  of  something  that  happened  once  and  it  is 
very  interesting. 


Curiosity  and  suspicion  these  two  things  are  often  very  interesting,  this 
one  that  I  am  now  beginning  describing  had  these  very  completely  in 
him,  and  always  then  this  one  had  these  more  simply  in  him  than  any 
one  knowing  him  was  realising,  he  had  inquisitiveness  in  him  for  the 
mere  satisfaction  of  asking  and  knowing,  he  had  suspicion  in  him  be- 


272  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

cause  suspicious  feeling  was  a  pleasant  feeling  in  him,  he  used  inquisi- 
tiveness  and  suspicion  in  living,  that  is  certain,  no  one  knowing  him 
could  deny  that  of  him,  but  often  he  was  not  using  such  things,  he  was 
just  inquiring,  he  was  just  asking  because  his  attention  was  caught  and 
he  liked  to  know  everything  and  he  liked  asking  and  often  suspicion  was 
in  him  because  suspicion  was  an  easy  way  to  be  feeling  for  him  about 
everything  and  a  very  pleasant  feeling  to  have  inside  him.  This  one  was 
of  the  resisting  slightly  engulfing  kind  in  men  and  women,  resisting  and 
engulfing  was  equally  in  him.  In  many  I  have  been  describing  engulfing 
is  stronger  than  resisting,  in  this  one  resisting  and  engulfing  was  pretty 
nearly  equally  divided  in  him,  he  was  thick  but  not  too  thick  not  too  dry 
in  his  being,  he  could  take  complete  impression  from  everything  he  was 
learning,  he  was  always  asking,  he  was  continually  suspecting,  he  was 
quite  successful  in  living.  This  is  now  to  be  a  little  a  description  of  the 
questions  he  was  always  asking,  of  the  suspicion  always  in  him. 

Some  men  and  women  are  inquisitive  about  everything,  they  are  al- 
ways asking,  if  they  see  any  one  with  anything  they  ask  what  is  that 
thing,  what  is  it  you  are  carrying,  what  are  you  going  to  be  doing  with 
that  thing,  why  have  you  that  thing,  where  did  you  get  that  thing,  how 
long  will  you  have  that  thing,  there  are  very  many  men  and  women  who 
want  to  know  about  anything  about  everything.  I  am  such  a  one,  I  cer- 
tainly am  such  a  one.  A  very  great  many  like  to  know  a  good  many 
things,  a  great  many  are  always  asking  questions  of  every  one,  a  great 
many  are  to  very  many  doing  this  with  intention,  a  great  many  have 
intention  in  their  asking,  a  great  many  just  have  their  attention  caught 
by  anything  and  then  they  ask  the  question.  Some  when  they  are  hear- 
ing any  one  talking  are  immediately  listening,  many  would  like  to  know 
what  is  in  letters  others  are  writing  and  receiving,  a  great  many  quite 
honest  ones  are  always  wanting  to  know  everything,  a  great  many  men 
and  women  have  a  good  deal  suspicion  in  them  about  others  and  this 
has  in  them  not  any  very  precise  meaning.  A  great  many  are  liking  to 
know  things  but  do  not  do  much  asking,  a  great  many  have  not  any  such 
a  feeling.  A  great  many  have  a  very  great  deal  of  suspiciousness  in  them, 
a  great  many  have  almost  not  any  of  this  being  in  them.  This  one  that 
I  am  now  describing  was  one  who  was  always  asking  and  mostly  always 
every  one  was  wondering  what  was  this  one  meaning  by  the  questions 
he  was  asking  and  often  later  this  one  would  perhaps  be  using  informa- 
tion he  had  had  from  asking  questions  but  asking  questions  in  him  was 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  273 

not  a  thing  in  him  that  came  from  wanting  to  be  using  some  time  infor- 
mation he  was  gathering,  very  often  asking  questions  in  him  was  simply 
from  a  catching  of  his  attention  by  something.  Once  this  one  asked  some 
one  he  was  visiting,  just  suddenly — and  this  door  here  does  that  lead 
into  the  hall  or  directly  out  into  the  garden — and  that  was  all  he  said 
then  about  this  thing  and  afterwards  every  one  was  thinking  he  would 
be  using  this  against  them  but  really  then  this  one  was  wondering  did 
the  door  lead  to  the  hall  or  directly  to  a  garden.  If  such  a  one,  one  hav- 
ing this  kind  of  a  way  is  of  the  resisting  engulfing  type  and  fairly  suc- 
cessful in  living  and  slow  and  sudden  and  quite  suspicious  of  every  one, 
almost  certainly  then  every  one  will  think  it  to  be  true  of  such  a  one  that 
this  one  always  is  asking  questions  for  purposes  of  winning,  perhaps  of 
cheating,  certainly  for  some  distant  manoeuvering.  This  is  very  common. 
There  are  very  many  having  in  them  rather  engulfing  rather  resisting 
being  who  are  slow  and  sudden,  who  are  a  little  absent  when  any  one  is 
asking  them  anything,  who  are  suspicious  and  quite  trusting,  who  are 
often  asking  questions  for  in  their  being  being  in  slow  action  and  always 
more  or  less  moving  they  have  it  that  their  attention  is  always  a  little 
wandering  waiting  for  something  inside  them  to  do  something  and  so 
then  these  of  them  are  very  busy  having  their  attention  caught  by  any- 
thing and  asking  questions  about  everything  and  very  often  every  one 
knowing  such  of  them  are  very  suspicious  of  them  and  mostly  these  then 
too  have  constant  suspicion  in  them  as  constant  as  the  questioning  in 
them.  This  is  very  common  then  with  this  kind  of  being.  I  am  not  yet 
through  with  my  description  of  this  kind  of  resisting  engulfing  men  and 
women. 

A  great  many  men  and  women  have  very  much  suspicion  in  them  of 
everything  of  every  one.  A  great  many  men  a  great  many  women  have 
steadily  suspicion  in  them  of  everything  of  every  one.  A  great  many  have 
this  in  them  from  the  beginning  of  living  in  them.  A  great  many  very 
many  of  the  resisting,  dependent  independent  very  earthy  men  and 
women  have  complete  suspicion,  little  steady  suspicion  of  everything  of 
every  one  always  in  them.  They  do  not  have  it  from  experiencing  in  them 
they  have  it  in  them  as  a  natural  thing,  they  have  it  in  them  like  a  child 
walking  and  certain  that  every  step  they  are  going  to  be  tumbling.  This 
is  very  common,  very  many  men  very  many  women  very  many  having 
resisting  being  in  them  have  it  in  them  to  be  suspicious  always  of  every 
one  of  everything.  This  is  in  them  very  often  when  they  are  quite  kindly 


274  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

quite  trusting,  very  many  then  having  resisting  being  have  it  to  have 
very  naturally  in  them  always  in  them  always  steadily  in  them  from 
their  beginning  that  they  are  suspicious  of  every  one  of  everything,  al- 
ways suspicious  always  steadily  suspicious  inside  them,  this  one  then  that 
I  am  describing  has  suspicion  always  in  him,  there  will  be  now  a  descrip- 
tion of  several  of  this  kind  in  men  and  women.  I  am  now  going  on  with 
my  description  of  one,  who  was  naturally  a  completely  suspicious  one. 

Many  having  resisting  being  have  it  in  them  all  their  living  when  they 
are  beginning  and  then  on  to  their  ending  have  it  to  have  suspicion  al- 
ways naturally  in  them  and  this  is  a  natural  thing  for  them  to  have  in 
them  because  they  having  resisting  being  have  it  in  them  to  be  knowing 
that  always  some  one  is  doing  attacking.  Resisting  being  in  them  is  in 
meaning  that  always  some  one  some  where  is  attacking,  resisting  being 
is  in  them  in  some  of  them,  in  very  many  men  in  very  many  women  as 
having  in  them  completely  naturally  always  very  much  suspicion.  Very 
many  men  and  women  have  in  them  completely  all  their  living  very 
complete  suspicious  feeling  very  many  men  and  women  with  resisting 
being.  Very  many  men  and  women  with  attacking  being  have  suspicion 
in  them  completely  in  them,  sometime  I  will  be  telling  very  much  of 
them.  Very  many  men  and  women  have  hardly  any  kind  of  suspicious 
feeling  ever  in  them.  There  are  very  many  ways  of  having  suspicious 
feeling  many  kinds  of  ways  many  degrees  of  such  feeling,  now  I  am 
giving  a  not  very  long  description  of  one  having  in  him  very  complete 
suspicious  feeling,  very  much  suspicious  feeling  about  men,  very  much 
very  complete  suspicious  feeling  about  women  and  this  one  was  quite  a 
successful  one  in  living  and  this  one  had  very  much  inquisitive  feeling 
in  him  and  this  one  was  pretty  completely  resisting  in  his  being  pretty 
completely  engulfing  in  his  being  and  always  very  many  felt  it  about 
him  that  every  bit  of  asking  in  him  and  every  bit  of  suspicion  in  him  was 
really  deep  wisdom  in  him  and  always  then  he  had  completely  resisting 
being  in  him  completely  engulfing  being  in  him,  complete  suspicion  in 
him,  complete  inquisitiveness  inside  him,  and  always  then  he  had  en- 
thusiasm and  very  much  feeling  about  something  and  always  he  was 
asking  about  everything  and  always  he  was  having  suspicious  feeling  in 
him  and  altogether  he  was  sufficiently  a  wise  one,  and  very  often  he 
was  just  asking  because  he  saw  something  and  very  often  he  was  just 
suspecting  because  he  had  resisting  being  in  him.  This  is  one  then  that 
is  to  me  a  completely  interesting  one.  Every  one  is  to  me  a  completely 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  275 

interesting  one,  this  one  is  to  me  very  completely  an  interesting  one.  I 
like  feeling  the  being  in  this  one,  sometime  yes  certainly  sometime  I  will 
be  telling  all  the  feeling  I  have  in  the  complete  being  in  this  one.  As  I  am 
saying  suspicious  feeling  is  very  interesting,  very  very  interesting.  Some- 
time later  I  will  tell  very  much  about  one  kind  of  them  of  the  resisting 
kind  of  them  that  have  it  in  them  to  have  suspicious  feeling  as  a  com- 
pletely interesting  thing  in  them.  I  hope  I  will  not  be  beginning  now  to 
tell  about  this  kind  of  them.  Perhaps  I  will  tell  a  little  about  such  of  them 
in  among  this  considerable  number  of  men  and  women  of  the  resisting 
kind  of  them  I  am  just  now  describing.  I  really  do  not  want  to  begin  now 
about  them.  I  will  not  begin  now  about  them  that  is  certain.  I  will  com- 
pletely understand  them  later  and  will  be  telling  then  about  them.  I  cer- 
tainly will  not  write  anything  now  about  them.  That  is  now  certain.  I 
have  been  writing  now  about  a  considerable  number  of  the  considerable 
number  I  am  now  describing  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them.  I  will  now 
begin  a  pretty  short  description  of  another  one  of  them.  That  is  to  be  a 
little  description  of  one  having  rich  resisting  being  and  being  a  little  too 
quick  perhaps  quite  a  little  too  quick  in  ripening.  This  one  had  in  him 
quite  some  inquisitiveness  in  him,  not  any  suspicion  in  him.  This  is  to 
be  now  quite  a  short  description  of  him. 

This  one  then  as  I  am  saying  was  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them,  that 
is  to  say  resisting  was  the  way  of  winning  in  him,  that  is  to  say  this  one 
was  in  a  way  slow  in  reacting,  that  is  to  say  this  one  in  a  way  was  need- 
ing to  own  those  this  one  needed  for  loving,  this  was  all  true  and  this  was 
all  not  true  of  this  one  and  this  one  was  completely  of  resisting  being,  this 
one  was  all  made  completely  all  of  only  resisting  being.  This  one  then 
really  was  very  early  a  completely  highly  developed  one,  this  one  was 
very  flowing  in  the  completely  creating  power  this  one  had  inside  him, 
this  one  was  a  quite  inquisitive  one,  this  one  had  hardly  any  suspicious- 
ness  in  natural  ordinary  daily  living  in  him,  this  one  was  really  not 
owning  the  one  this  one  needed  for  his  loving.  This  one  as  I  was  saying 
was  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them,  not  of  the  engulfing  kind  of  them,  of 
completely  sensitively  resisting  being  and  the  resisting  being  and  sensi- 
tive being  was  pretty  nearly  equal  in  this  one,  it  was  pretty  nearly  as  sen- 
sitive as  resisting  but  not  quite  completely  so  in  this  one  it  was  a  little 
more  sensitive  than  resisting  and  so  this  one  was  quick  in  developing, 
early  in  flowering  and  this  one  was  always  trying  to  be  a  slower  one  and 
this  one  really  never  was  in  living  a  really  slow  one.  This  one  was  as  I 


276  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

was  saying  not  a  suspicious  one,  resisting  being  was  not  strongly  enough 
in  him  as  protecting  to  give  to  him  a  suspicious  feeling  toward  everything 
and  every  one.  This  one  was  not  really  owning  the  one  this  one  needed 
for  his  loving.  This  one  could  only  own  one  this  one  needed  for  loving 
by  getting  rid  of  the  one  this  one  needed  for  loving  and  then  this  one 
would  not  be  having  the  one  this  one  needed  for  loving  and  then  where 
was  this  one,  he  was  where  he  needed  the  one  he  needed  for  loving  and 
taking  her  back  again  made  him  then  lose  the  power  of  owning  this  one, 
the  only  way  he  could  own  this  one  was  by  getting  rid  of  this  one  or  by 
secretly  letting  some  other  one  love  him,  in  this  way  then  this  one  to 
himself  inside  him  could  own  the  one  he  needed  for  loving.  He  really 
could  own  the  one  he  needed  for  loving  by  sending  her  away  from  him, 
he  then  did  not  have  near  him  the  one  he  needed  for  loving,  to  himself 
inside  him  then  he  could  own  that  one  by  letting,  by  making  some  other 
one  love  him  and  mostly  then  he  dreamed  of  this  thing,  he  did  this  thing. 
This  is  now  a  clear  complete  description  of  one  having  resisting  being. 

This  is  now  to  be  a  description  of  another  one  having  resisting  being, 
not  engulfing  resisting  being,  just  resisting  being,  this  one  was  a  very 
nice  one,  a  very  pleasant  gentle,  sensitive,  fairly  resisting,  sometimes  an- 
grily resisting  one,  this  one  had  some  suspicion  in  her  in  living,  this  one 
could  have  very  often  an  injured  feeling,  this  one  had  quite  a  good  deal 
of  inquisitive  feeling  in  her,  this  one  needed  to  own  to  a  considerable 
degree  those  this  one  needed  for  loving,  this  one  had  children  and  chil- 
dren were  to  this  one  a  piece  of  her  cut  off  from  her  that  were  as  it  were 
equal  to  her  and  she  was  as  they  were,  the  same  in  living,  thinking,  feel- 
ing and  being.  This  one  as  I  was  saying  was  a  gentle,  often  injured,  fairly 
angrily  resisting  one,  quite  inquisitive,  with  enough  suspicious  feeling 
to  be  defending  other  ones  when  it  was  not  at  all  her  business  to  be  inter- 
fering and  so  this  one  a  very  nice  a  completely  in  a  way  honest  one  could 
do  something  that  was  not  a  pretty  thing  for  this  one  to  be  doing.  This 
is  what  this  one  did  once  in  her  living. 

This  one  that  I  have  been  describing  had  not  real  suspicious  feeling, 
this  one  was  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them  but  this  one  had  very  much 
more  sensitiveness  than  resisting  being  and  resisting  being  was  in  this 
one  not  a  kind  of  thing  to  make  of  this  one  really  a  suspicious  one.  This 
being  in  this  one  resisting  being  in  this  one  was  in  this  one  a  sense  of 
really  being  gently  minute  by  minute  in  living  and  so  this  one  when 
this  one  was  adding  up  anything  would  always  be  adding  it  by  one  and 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  277 

one  and  one.  This  one  had  it  to  be  very  careful  in  living  and  always  this 
one  would  be  counting  everything  by  one  and  one  and  one.  Counting 
everything  this  one  was  spending  by  one  and  one  and  one  and  one  and 
one  and  one  was  in  this  one  resisting  being  was  in  this  one  recognition  of 
real  existing  of  everything.  This  one  could  have  very  much  injured  feel- 
ing, this  one  could  have  injured  feeling  very  often  could  have  it  for  her- 
self for  other  ones  for  any  one  and  this  one  sometimes  was  very  mixed 
up  in  doing  anything  by  injured  feeling  for  one  and  not  for  another  one 
and  for  that  other  one  then  and  for  this  one  herself  this  one  inside  this 
one  then  and  this  one  then  was  sufficiently  complicated  by  injured  feel- 
ing inside  this  one  and  injured  feeling  was  the  only  complicated  thing 
in  the  being  and  in  the  living  of  this  one.  This  one  was  as  I  was  saying  a 
very  gentle  a  very  sensitive  one,  this  one  was  a  resisting  one,  this  one  was 
not  at  all  an  engulfing  one,  this  one  from  the  mixing  of  a  little  softly 
resisting  being  and  very  much  gentle  and  sensitive  being  had  in  this  one 
suspicion  only  as  injured  feeling.  Some  having  this  kind  of  being  and 
having  sensitiveness  not  delicately  and  sensitively  in  them  and  resisting 
slightly  engulfing  in  them  are  completely  suspicious  and  completely  in- 
jured always  in  their  living  and  these  very  often  have  it  in  them  to  hav- 
ing being  persecuted  as  a  mania  in  them.  There  are  very  many  having 
such  being  in  them,  later  I  will  be  telling  a  few  little  things  that  some- 
times are  happening  in  living  in  the  living  of  this  kind  of  men  this  kind 
of  women.  As  I  was  saying  this  one  I  am  now  just  a  little  describing 
was  not  at  all  not  even  a  little  bit  an  engulfing  one,  this  one  was  a  softly 
resisting  one  a  really  earthy  one  really  feeling  always  in  living  that  exist- 
ing anything  existing  is  really  there  in  being  and  always  this  one  was 
doing  all  the  counting  this  one  ever  was  doing  by  counting  one  and  then 
one  and  then  one  and  then  one.  This  one  as  I  was  saying  had  not  really 
suspicious  being,  this  one  as  I  was  saying  had  much  and  quite  often  very 
warmly  really  injured  feeling,  for  herself  in  herself,  for  some  other  one, 
for  any  other  one  and  this  injured  feeling  was  in  the  being  of  this  one 
the  only  complication.  Once  some  one,  a  young  cousin,  this  one  I  am 
describing  was  then  coming  to  the  beginning  of  the  middle  living  in 
this  one,  once  a  young  cousin  told  this  one,  the  cousin  was  very  fond 
of  this  one,  that  the  cousin  never  wanted  to  be  eating  dinner  at  the  house 
of  another  one  another  cousin  of  this  one,  that  he  liked  very  much  in- 
deed being  with  his  cousin  but  he  did  not  like  it  at  all  for  a  place  to  be 
dining,  this  was  then  all  that  was  said  just  then.  Later  then  the  first 


278  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

cousin  the  one  that  said  this  to  the  one  I  have  been  describing,  asked  this 
cousin  who  had  just  come  to  be  engaged  to  be  married  then  to  come  and 
take  dinner  with  him.  This  one  then  the  cousin  asked  to  dine  by  the 
other  cousin  of  the  one  I  am  describing  happened  to  mention  to  the  one 
I  am  describing  that  he  was  going  to  be  dining  next  week  with  this 
cousin.  This  one  I  am  now  describing  had  then  completely  inside  this 
one  an  injured  feeling  for  this  one  that  was  going  to  be  dining  with  the 
other  one  that  this  one  should  be  going  to  be  dining  with  the  other  one 
when  the  other  one  would  not  dine  with  that  one  because  it  was  not  a 
pleasant  thing  and  so  this  one  I  am  describing  told  the  one  going  to  be 
dining  with  the  other  one  what  that  one  had  said  about  dining  with  him. 
Then  of  course  this  one  would  not  dine  with  the  other  one.  And  all  this 
came  from  there  being  in  this  one  I  am  describing  a  soft  resisting,  a 
gentle  sensitive  being  with  not  any  suspiciousness  in  being  and  not  any 
engulfing  and  not  any  egotism  so  that  this  one  had  to  have  in  this  one 
that  everything  that  could  be  aggression  or  suspicion  or  worldliness  in 
living  or  individual  feeling  was  in  this  one  injured  feeling,  a  very  little 
angry  and  a  very  much  hurt  feeling  and  so  this  one  had  injured  feeling 
quite  often  and  very  much  for  this  one,  for  some  other  one,  for  any  other 
one. 

I  will  describe  now  very  little  a  very  different  kind  of  one  from  that 
one  I  have  been  just  describing.  There  will  not  be  then  very  many  more 
of  them  of  the  considerable  number  left  then.  There  will  perhaps  then 
still  be  left  about  six  of  them,  six  kinds  of  them  and  perhaps  there  will 
be  added  a  few  more  to  make  another  generalisation  but  really  there  have 
been  already  done  a  considerable  part  of  the  considerable  number  of  the 
resisting  kind  of  them  that  I  am  now  describing. 

This  one  then  is  quite  a  different  kind  of  a  one  from  the  last  one  I 
was  describing.  This  one  as  a  whole  one  is  like  a  cannon-ball  lying  on  a 
bag  of  cotton,  the  cannon-ball  lying  on  a  cotton  bag  as  a  complete  thing 
was  the  whole  of  this  one.  This  is  in  a  way  a  description  of  this  one,  there 
will  be  now  a  very  little  more  description  of  this  one. 

Children  are  always  thinking  are  very  often  thinking  that  their 
mothers  are  very  lovely  looking  and  that  is  very  often  because  mostly 
the  child  is  always  close  up  to  the  mother  close  to  her  when  the  child  is 
looking  and  mostly  being  close  like  that  as  a  habitual  thing  is  to  find 
that  one  a  lovely  thing  a  lovely  looking  one. 

This  one  that  I  was  saying  was  a  whole  one  which  was  like  a  can- 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  279 

non-ball  resting  on  a  bag  of  cotton  was  the  cotton  part  finding  the 
cannon-ball  lovely  looking  being  always  so  close  to  that  thing  and  the 
cannon-ball  was  finding  the  cotton  lovely  looking  that  being  so  closely 
always  to  that  thing.  To  explain  then.  This  one  then  was  one  having 
solid  enough  dull  not  very  lively,  not  lively  at  all  fairly  dry  resisting 
bottom,  a  bottom  that  might  have  been  engulfing  if  it  had  been  a  lively 
dark  wet  thing,  but  this  was  not  true  of  it  then  at  all  that  it  was  engulfing, 
it  was  entirely  not  engulfing.  As  I  was  saying  many  having  engulfing 
being  and  not  having  resisting  being  enough  in  them  are  very  aspiring 
and  this  one  then  had  aspiration  like  what  might  have  been  engulfing 
in  the  bottom  being  the  bottom  being  which  was  not  at  all  engulfing. 
Some  of  this  kind  of  them  have  it  as  a  bottom  being  something  that  is 
more  nearly  engulfing  and  these  then  have  more  active  aspiration  as 
ambition,  these  have  then  more  nearly  some  power  of  very  nearly  en- 
gulfing something  but  this  one  was  as  little  engulfing  as  such  a  kind  of 
them  can  be  in  living,  just  as  amiable  and  ideal  in  aspiration  and  aspira- 
tion in  this  one  as  I  was  saying  was  like  the  cannon-ball  resting  on  the 
bag  of  cotton,  it  was  completely  beautiful  always  to  all  that  cotton  and 
this  one  was  always  living  near  light  and  beauty  near  to  the  aspiration, 
the  cannon-ball  and  this  one  was  then  as  I  was  saying  amiable  in  inten- 
tion and  clear  and  large  worded  and  hesitating  in  expression.  This  one 
is  an  interesting  enough  one.  I  am  knowing  quite  well  three  of  these  of 
them,  one  is  more  nearly  engulfing,  one  has  of  him  the  very  largest  size 
in  bags  of  cotton,  one  and  this  is  the  one  I  am  realising  in  now  describ- 
ing was  a  little  skimped  in  the  cotton  foundation.  This  is  not  a  funny 
description,  I  was  not  certain  I  should  say  anything  of  the  cannon-ball 
and  the  cotton,  I  was  almost  certain  I  would  not  say  anything  in  this  de- 
scription about  the  cannon-ball  and  the  cotton,  it  was  not  in  me  a  natu- 
ral way  of  conceiving  any  one,  some  one  conceived  this  one  as  a  cannon- 
ball  resting  on  a  bag  of  cotton,  I  used  that  in  my  description,  this  is  not 
to  me  a  natural  way  of  talking,  I  have  been  using  it  here  as  I  am  saying. 
Now  I  will  begin  describing  another  one  and  that  will  be  leaving  only 
a  few  more  to  be  describing  of  the  considerable  number  of  them  that  I 
have  been  describing  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them.  This  one  that  I  am 
now  beginning  describing  is  of  the  resisting  and  sensitive  and  suspicious 
kind  of  them  and  now  I  will  be  telling  a  few  stories  about  such  of  them. 
It  is  very  hard  with  some  to  be  realising  what  kind  they  are  this  kind 
of  them  when  they  are  quite  old  ones.  It  is  a  very  difficult  thing  to  be 


280  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

realising  of  some  kinds  of  them  one  has  been  knowing  before  the  be- 
ginning of  their  middle  living  what  they  are  as  old  ones,  these  in  living. 
When  one  is  oneself  a  fairly  old  one,  one  will  be  knowing  a  little  more 
perhaps  of  this  thing,  one  is  knowing  a  little  of  something  of  this  thing 
from  old  relations  one  is  knowing  and  one  knowing  all  the  family  of 
these  then  is  perhaps  a  little  knowing  what  these  are  as  younger  ones 
in  living.  These  that  I  am  now  describing  are  a  kind  of  them  that  when 
they  are  old  ones  no  one  is  paying  much  attention  to  them.  They  have 
then  as  old  ones  the  same  being  in  them  I  am  now  describing,  they  are 
mostly  not  any  too  successfully  living  all  their  living,  they  have  when 
they  are  old  ones  the  same  being  in  them,  mostly  then  not  very  many 
then  are  paying  much  attention  to  them  then,  these  when  they  are  old 
ones  in  living,  these  that  I  am  now  describing. 

These  then  that  I  am  now  describing  are  a  kind  of  them  that  have 
sensitiveness  that  is  complete  suspicion  in  them,  these  are  of  the  kind 
of  them  that  are  themselves  completely  important  to  themselves  inside 
them,  they  have  resistance  in  them  much  less  than  sensitiveness  as  sus- 
picion in  them.  Suspicion  in  these  of  them  comes  out  of  the  sensitiveness 
of  them  before  the  sensitiveness  in  them  gives  to  them  inside  them  really 
an  emotion  and  so  in  these  in  living  suspicion  is  as  it  were  the  whole  of 
them,  the  complete  emotion  always  in  them.  This  sensitiveness  in  them 
that  is  in  them  a  suspicion  before  it  is  an  emotion  in  them  from  anything 
is  always  every  moment  in  such  of  them.  That  these  have  it  in  them 
that  sensitiveness  makes  for  them  suspicion  before  they  have  from  any- 
thing a  complete  emotion  is  the  reason  that  these  mostly  are  not  very  suc- 
cessful in  living,  they  are  a  little  successful  many  of  them  and  when  they 
are  older  ones  or  old  ones,  no  one,  not  any  one  is  paying  much  attention 
to  them.  These  then  in  a  way  are  not  really  earthy,  not  really  resisting, 
not  at  all  engulfing,  these  then  in  a  way  are  not  certain  that  dead  is  dead, 
that  things  really  are  existing,  these  can  have  superstition  and  religion 
and  prudence  and  fear  and  almost  a  crazy  kind  of  thinking  in  them. 
This  is  now  some  stories  about  some  of  them. 

I  feel  it  and  I  brood  over  it  and  it  comes  then  very  simply  from  me, 
do  you  see  how  simply  it  comes  out  of  me,  you  see,  I  feel  it  and  I  think 
about  it  and  then  I  know  it  and  I  know  then  it  is  a  simple  thing,  why  are 
you  always  saying  then  it  is  a  complicated  one  when  really  it  is  a  very 
simple  one  this  thing,  do  you  see  now  it  is  a  very  simple  thing  this  thing, 
do  you  see  that  this  is  a  simple  thing  like  everything  why  then  should 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  281 

you  make  of  it  a  complicated  thing  when  it  is  a  simple  thing,  do  you  see 
now  that  it  is  a  simple  thing  this  thing,  why  do  you  make  everything  a 
complicated  thing,  do  you  see,  this  is  a  simple  thing,  everything  is  a  sim- 
ple thing,  you  make  everything  a  complicated  thing  when  everything  is 
a  simple  thing,  do  you  see,  it  is  a  simple  thing,  you  say  it  is  a  complicated 
thing,  do  you  see,  everything  is  a  simple  thing  that  is  certain,  do  you  see, 
that  is  certain.  Very  many  are  always  saying  this  thing,  it  is  very  com- 
mon, to  be  certain,  to  be  really  certain  that  some  one  is  really  feeling 
thinking  seeing  that  that  one  is  really  feeling  thinking  seeing  what  that 
one  really  is  seeing  feeling  thinking  is  certainly  a  quite  rare  thing.  Mostly 
then  it  is  a  difficult  thing,  a  patient  solemn  thing  to  be  really  certain  that 
any  one  is  really  feeling  seeing  thinking  believing  what  that  one  in  the 
way  that  one  really  is  feeling  thinking  seeing  believing  is  feeling  think- 
ing seeing  believing  anything.  These  then  I  am  now  describing  who  are 
completely  for  themselves  suspicious  ones,  who  have  it  in  them  to  have 
emotion  in  them  become  suspicion  before  it  is  a  real  emotion  of  anything 
for  anything  about  anything  in  them,  these  have  it  completely  to  be 
certain  that  every  one  is  doing  feeling  seeing  the  thing  that  one  is  feel- 
ing doing  seeing  believing  when  such  a  one  is  not  agreeing  with  them, 
when  such  a  one  is  feeling  thinking  believing  doing  anything  that  such 
a  one  is  doing  that  thing  for  a  mean  or  wicked  or  jealous  or  stupid  or 
obstinate  or  cursed  or  religious  reason,  it  is  not  a  real  feeling  believing 
seeing  realising,  that  this  one  having  suspicion  in  him  is  certain.  One  of 
such  a  kind  of  one  once  liked  very  well  some  one  and  then  that  one  for- 
got to  give  this  one  five  cents  that  this  one  had  paid  for  that  one  and 
then  this  one  hated  that  one,  had  no  trust  in  that  one  for  this  one  was 
certain  that  that  one  knowing  that  this  one  was  too  sensitive  to  be  ask- 
ing did  not  think  it  necessary  to  pay  that  one,  he  never  could  believe 
that  any  one  forgot  such  a  thing.  This  is  an  extreme  thing  of  a  way  of 
feeling  that  is  common  to  all  of  these  of  them.  Another  one  once  was 
always  certain  that  some  one  who  one  time  told  him  that  he  would 
sometime  later  be  successful  in  teaching  meant  it  that  he  would  not  be 
successful  in  painting  and  that  this  was  because  that  one  was  jealous 
of  this  one  although  that  one  had  just  met  this  one.  This  one  was  cer- 
tain that  every  one  sometime  would  do  a  mean  thing  to  him  and  al- 
ways each  one  to  him  sometime  did  this  thing.  Once  one  said  to  him  I 
hope  you  will  be  successful  in  the  city  where  you  are  going  to  earn  your 
living.  That  means  that  you  think  my  way  of  working  rotten,  you  know 


282  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

very  well  no  one  making  a  living  there  is  doing  good  work  to  your 
thinking,  it  would  be  a  better  thing  to  say  what  you  are  thinking  straight 
out,  said  this  one.  One  of  such  a  kind  of  them  was  always  asking  and 
always  getting  and  always  he  was  certain  that  every  one  was  doing  the 
thing  they  were  doing  because  they  wanted  to  make  of  him  a  poor  thing 
and  some  of  such  of  them  are  always  having  difficulty  with  partners  and 
others  and  any  one  and  then  as  I  am  saying  when  they  are  older  ones 
not  any  one  pays  very  much  attention  to  them.  These  are  some  and  more 
or  less  like  them  are  very  many  a  very  great  many  always  living  who 
have  it  in  them  that  anything  to  them  makes  an  emotion  that  is  sus- 
picion before  it  is  real  emotion  in  them. 

In  some  connected  with  them,  sensitiveness  that  in  these  I  have  been 

* 

just  describing  turns  into  suspicion  before  it  is  sensation  or  emotion 
about  a  person,  a  thing  clone,  or  anything,  in  these  turns  into  cleverness 
in  them  or  self-protection  in  the  sense  of  doing  nothing  and  breaking 
all  engagements  and  giving  up  all  obligation.  In  some  it  turns  before 
it  is  really  a  sensation  into  a  sensual  passion.  This  is  all  very  interest- 
ing surely  to  any  one  really  believing  really  being  certain  completely  cer- 
tain that  different  ones  are  different  in  kind  from  other  kinds  of  them  are 
really  different  in  experiencing.  This  is  in  a  way  a  very  difficult  thing 
to  really  truly  believe  in  one,  that  some  one  really  has  a  completely  differ- 
ent kind  of  a  way  of  feeling  a  thing  from  another  one.  Mostly  every 
one  in  practical  living  needs  only  to  be  completely  realising  their  own 
experiencing  and  then  need  only  to  be  realising  other  ones  experiencing 
enough  to  be  using  them,  the  ones  experiencing.  It  is  a  very  difficult 
thing  to  really  believe  it  of  another  one  what  the  other  one  is  really  feel- 
ing, it  is  such  a  very  long  learning  anybody  must  be  having  to  be  really 
to  be  actually  believing  this  thing.  I  do  this  thing.  I  am  a  rare  one,  I 
know  this  always  more  in  living.  I  know  always  more  in  living  that 
other  ones  are  really  believing  what  they  are  believing,  feeling,  what 
they  are  feeling,  thinking,  what  they  are  thinking,  always  more  and 
more  in  living  I  know  I  am  a  rare  one.  There  are  not  very  many  having 
this  very  completely  really  in  them. 

To  go  on  now  then  describing  a  little  more  some  of  these  I  have  been 
last  mentioning.  Some  of  these  are  having  their  sensitiveness  making 
of  them  clever,  or  self-protecting,  or  sexually  wanting  anything,  without 
having  really  emotion  from  the  thing  from  the  sensitiveness  in  them. 
These  are  of  the  resisting  kind  of  them  and  might  to  some  seem  to  be  en- 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  283 

gulfing  but  they  are  not  really  resisting  or  engulfing.  Sensitiveness  turns 
into  suspicion,  cleverness,  self-protection,  sexual  action  before  it  comes 
as  an  emotion  and  these  mostly  then  never  have  sensitiveness  in  them 
leading  to  emotion  by  reaction  to  a  person  or  thing  or  action.  These  then 
are  interesting.  To  be  telling  then  now  a  little  more  of  some  of  them. 

These  then  all  of  them  have  it  in  them  that  everything  turns  inside 
them  to  suspicion,  to  cleverness,  to  self-protection,  to  sexual  emotion, 
to  sensibility  of  a  kind  that  is  a  thing  that  is  called  sentimental,  before 
it  comes  to  produce  emotion  from  the  thing  about  the  thing  in  relation 
to  the  thing  itself  inside  them.  There  is  one,  I  knew  this  one  quite  very 
well  once  and  last  week  again  I  was  seeing  this  one  and  now  I  am  quite 
a  good  deal  understanding  this  one,  this  is  one  and  in  this  one  everything 
was  in  this  one  sensibility  of  a  sentimental  kind,  this  was  in  this  one  not 
very  much  as  suspicion  as  I  was  saying  it  is  in  some,  and  in  this  one  every- 
thing, nothing  had  any  meaning  excepting  as  arousing  a  feeling  of  sen- 
timental sensibility  that  was  the  same  thing  whatever  was  the  thing  that 
came  to  this  one  as  touching  this  one.  This  one  was  pretty  completely 
to  every  one  completely  socially  one  and  this  is  quite  a  common  thing. 
Sometime  a  history  of  her  and  her.  two  mothers  and  her  sister  will  be 
written  and  I  have  been  telling  that  it  will  be  written  to  several  of  them. 
She  was  as  I  was  saying  completely  such  a  one  and  as  a  younger  one 
was  sharp  and  interesting  and  then  she  was  a  married  one  and  then 
she  was  large  and  dull.  This  was  after  she  succeeded  fairly  at  the  be- 
ginning of  her  middle  living  in  coming  to  be  a  married  one.  She  had 
not  then  any  reaction  at  all  in  living  for  she  was  then  in  her  married 
living  living  with  bottom  being  reacting  and  there  was  no  bottom  being 
in  her,  living,  at  all  in  her  then  and  every  one  said  it  was  such  a  surpris- 
ing thing  that  she  should  be  then  so  completely  a  submissive  and  indif- 
ferent and  inefficient  and  a  little  a  timid  one  then  when  she  had  been 
before  her  being  a  married  one  so  altogether  an  emotional  and  dark, 
expressive  and  clever  one  but  it  was  just  this  thing  that  I  am  saying  that 
I  am  now  pretty  well  understanding  that  makes  it  a  completely  a  natural 
thing,  she  had  not  ever  had  anything  that  did  not  turn  to  sensibility 
before  it  reached  her  in  her  and  when  she  was  a  tired  one  and  married 
and  fatter  then  there  was  not  this  then.  She  is  an  interesting  one,  really 
she  is  a  very  interesting  one,  she  is  quite  a  pretty  ugly  one  now  but  not 
in  any  way  now  an  active  one  as  now  I  am  completely  realising.  It  is  an 
interesting  history  the  history  of  all  of  this  kind  of  them.  It  is  a  very  in- 


284  THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS 

teresting  thing  the  history  of  this  one.  The  complete  family  living  of 
this  one  is  a  thing  I  could  make  a  remarkably  interesting  thing  to  any 
one,  that  is  certain.  I  have  been  telling  that  to  this  one.  This  one  did  not 
like  very  much  to  hear  me  say  that  thing,  it  is  a  certain  thing  that  it  is 
an  interesting  thing  to  me  and  I  could  tell  it  so  to  every  one,  I  have  been 
telling  it  to  this  one  that  I  can  make  it  a  completely  interesting  thing. 
This  one  was  not  liking  it  very  well  then.  Sometime  I  will  be  feeling 
completely  the  telling  of  it  and  then  I  will  be  telling  it,  I  have  told  this 
one  that  I  will  tell  it  then.  This  one  will  not  know  then  it  is  this  one.  That 
is  the  very  nice  thing  in  this  writing.  Sometime  I  will  tell  everything, 
everything.  Mostly  I  do  tell  anything. 

One  of  this  kind  of  them  I  have  been  describing  has  it  that  every- 
thing is  in  her  as  cleverness,  or  self-protection  from  any  stimulation, 
never  an  emotion  about  a  thing.  This  one  would,  if  she  could,  have  real 
emotion  but  it  never  is  even  a  little  bit  in  her  of  herself,  inside  her.  Some- 
times it  is,  a  moment,  a  real  feeling  in  her,  something  from  something, 
when  it  is  made  to  be  in  her  by  some  one  by  force  holding  her  from  hav- 
ing it  turn  into  cleverness,  suspicion,  sentimental  believing,  self-protec- 
tion and  so  giving  it  a  chance  to  sink  into  her  so  that  she  has  a  reaction 
to  it  really  in  her.  This  has  a  few  times  happened  to  her.  This  one  is 
always  feeling  that  some  one  should  do  this  for  her.  Holding  her  from 
being  her  way  in  her  so  that  emotion  can  be  in  her  has  been  done  for  her. 
She  never  can  do  this  for  herself,  ever.  She  is  in  her  feeling  certain  that 
every  one  in  this  way  should  be  doing  for  her.  She  is  all  her  living  need- 
ing that  some  one  do  this  thing.  She  has  it  in  her  as  a  feeling  that  the 
world  owes  it  to  her  to  do  this  for  her.  She  has  not  ever  any  really  grate- 
ful feeling,  she  has  only  the  emotion  that  some  one  wins  in  her  for  her. 
It  is  an  interesting  game  to  play  in  her  and  very  many  do  it  for  her.  Then 
they  lose  the  power  and  she  has  to  have  another.  She  does  not  know  that 
she  is  certain  that  the  world  owes  this  to  her. 

This  one  then  would  have  it  in  her  to  be  certain  that  to  be  dead  was 
not  to  be  at  all  really  a  dead  one,  this  was  what  this  one  wanted  to  have 
in  her  as  realisation,  as  emotion,  this  conviction  is  what  this  one  was  very 
certain  the  world  owed  her.  This  is  what  this  one  wanted  that  she  should 
have  in  her,  have  as  emotion  inside  her,  this  emotion  in  her  is  what  every 
one  knowing  should  do  for  her  inside  her.  Very  many  coming  to  know 
her  tried  to  give  it  to  her,  always  she  was  wanting  to  have  this  inside 
her,  the  conviction,  the  emotion  that  to  be  dead  was  not  to  be  really  a 


THE  MAKING  OF  AMERICANS  285 

dead  one.  This  was  the  history  of  the  living  in  her.  She  had  in  her  as 
I  was  saying  to  have  it  that  nothing  gave  to  her  really  an  emotion  about 
that  thing.  Every  thing  touching  her  aroused  in  her  suspicion,  clever- 
ness and  self-protection.  She  wanted  to  have  conviction  and  emotion 
that  to  be  dead  is  not  to  be  really  truly  a  dead  one.  She  wanted  this  in 
her,  this  realisation  and  emotion,  in  her,  and  then  too  she  would  be  cer- 
tain, she  knew  then  she  would  then  be  really  certain  completely  certain 
that  every  one  was  a  very  much  better  one  than  each  one  really  was  in 
living.  She  was  certain,  pretty  nearly  certain  that  if  she  were  really  com- 
pletely certain  that  she  was  really  knowing  that  to  be  dead  was  not  to 
be  at  all  a  really  dead  one  she  would  then  be  knowing  that  every  one 
living  was  really  a  very  much  better  one  than  each  one  really  is  living 
and  this  would  be  a  very  pleasant  feeling  for  her  to  be  having.  Always 
then  she  was  needing  to  be  completely  certain  that  she  was  really  know- 
ing that  to  be  dead  was  not  to  be  really  at  all  a  dead  one  and  always  she 
was  unconsciously  feeling  that  the  world  owed  it  to  her  to  give  her  this 
realisation.  This  was  a  history  of  her.  Perhaps  she  never  came  really  to 
have  it  in  her,  perhaps  she  came  to  have  it  a  little  in  her,  always  some 
one  was  working  in  her  for  her,  this  is  a  history  of  her.  This  is  an  amus- 
ing thing,  this  history  of  this  one.  Sometime  a  very  detailed  history  of 
this  one  will  be  an  amusing  thing  to  be  writing,  to  be  reading.  Now  I 
will  not  tell  any  more  detail  of  this  one. 


Three  Portraits  of  Painters 


CEZANNE,  MATISSE,  PICASSO 


The  portraits  of  Matisse  and  Picasso  were  originally  published  in  the 
August,  1912,  issue  of  CAMERA  WORK  and  later  were  reprinted  in 
PORTRAITS  AND  PRAYERS,  79^.  Stieglitz  told  me  recently  that  he  had  ac- 
cepted them  for  publication  as  soon  as  he  had  looked  them  over,  prin- 
cipally because  he  did  not  immediately  understand  them.  These  por- 
traits, the  earliest  examples  of  Gertrude  Stein  s  "difficult"  wor\  to  reach 
the  public,  were  much  commented  on  and  satirized.  In  LECTURES  IN 
AMERICA  she  has  explained:  "I  continued  to  do  what  I  was  doing  in  THE 
MAKING  OF  AMERICANS,  /  was  doing  what  the  cinema  was  doing,  I  was 
making  a  continuous  succession  of  the  statement  of  what  that  person 
was  until  I  had  not  many  things  but  one  thing!9 


Cezanne 


The  Irish  lady  can  say,  that  to-day  is  every  day.  Caesar  can  say  that  every 
day  is  to-day  and  they  say  that  every  day  is  as  they  say. 

In  this  way  we  have  a  place  to  stay  and  he  was  not  met  because  he 
was  settled  to  stay.  When  I  said  settled  I  meant  settled  to  stay.  When  I 
said  settled  to  stay  I  meant  settled  to  stay  Saturday.  In  this  way  a  mouth 
is  a  mouth.  In  this  way  if  in  as  a  mouth  if  in  as  a  mouth  where,  if  in  as 
a  mouth  where  and  there.  Believe  they  have  water  too.  Believe  they  have 
that  water  too  and  blue  when  you  see  blue,  is  all  blue  precious  too,  is  all 
that  that  is  precious  too  is  all  that  and  they  meant  to  absolve  you.  In  this 
way  Cezanne  nearly  did  nearly  in  this  way.  Cezanne  nearly  did  nearly  did 
and  nearly  did.  And  was  I  surprised.  Was  I  very  surprised.  Was  I  sur- 
prised. I  was  surprised  and  in  that  patient,  are  you  patient  when  you  find 
bees.  Bees  in  a  garden  make  a  specialty  of  honey  and  so  does  honey. 
Honey  and  prayer.  Honey  and  there.  There  where  the  grass  can  grow 
nearly  four  times  yearly. 


Matisse 


One  was  quite  certain  that  for  a  long  part  of  his  being  one  being  living 
he  had  been  trying  to  be  certain  that  he  was  wrong  in  doing  what  he 
was  doing  and  then  when  he  could  not  come  to  be  certain  that  he  had 
been  wrong  in  doing  what  he  had  been  doing,  when  he  had  completely 
convinced  himself  that  he  would  not  come  to  be  certain  that  he  had 

289 


290  THREE  PORTRAITS  OF  PAINTERS 

been  wrong  in  doing  what  he  had  been  doing  he  was  really  certain  then 
that  he  was  a  great  one  and  he  certainly  was  a  great  one.  Certainly  every 
one  could  be  certain  of  this  thing  that  this  one  is  a  great  one. 

Some  said  of  him,  when  anybody  believed  in  him  they  did  not  then 
believe  in  any  other  one.  Certainly  some  said  this  of  him. 

He  certainly  very  clearly  expressed  something.  Some  said  that  he  did 
not  clearly  express  anything.  Some  were  certain  that  he  expressed  some- 
thing very  clearly  and  some  of  such  of  them  said  that  he  would  have 
been  a  greater  one  if  he  had  not  been  one  so  clearly  expressing  what  he 
was  expressing.  Some  said  he  was  not  clearly  expressing  what  he  was 
expressing  and  some  of  such  of  them  said  that  the  greatness  of  strug- 
gling which  was  not  clear  expression  made  of  him  one  being  a  com- 
pletely great  one. 

Some  said  of  him  that  he  was  greatly  expressing  something  strug- 
gling. Some  said  of  him  that  he  was  not  greatly  expressing  something 
struggling. 

He  certainly  was  clearly  expressing  something,  certainly  sometime 
any  one  might  come  to  know  that  of  him.  Very  many  did  come  to  know 
it  of  him  that  he  was  clearly  expressing  what  he  was  expressing.  He  was 
a  great  one.  Any  one  might  come  to  know  that  of  him.  Very  many  did 
come  to  know  that  of  him.  Some  who  came  to  know  that  of  him,  that 
he  was  a  great  one,  that  he  was  clearly  expressing  something,  came  then 
to  be  certain  that  he  was  not  greatly  expressing  something  being  strug- 
gling. Certainly  he  was  expressing  something  being  struggling.  Any 
one  could  be  certain  that  he  was  expressing  something  being  struggling. 
Some  were  certain  that  he  was  greatly  expressing  this  thing.  Some  were 
certain  that  he  was  not  greatly  expressing  this  thing.  Every  one  could 
come  to  be  certain  that  he  was  a  great  man.  Any  one  could  come  to  be 
certain  that  he  was  clearly  expressing  something. 

Some  certainly  were  wanting  to  be  needing  to  be  doing  what  he  was 
doing,  that  is  clearly  expressing  something.  Certainly  they  were  willing 
to  be  wanting  to  be  a  great  one.  They  were,  that  is  some  of  them,  were 
not  wanting  to  be  needing  expressing  anything  being  struggling.  And 
certainly  he  was  one  not  greatly  expressing  something  being  struggling, 
he  was  a  great  one,  he  was  clearly  expressing  something.  Some  were 
wanting  to  be  doing  what  he  was  doing  that  is  clearly  expressing  some- 
thing. Very  many  were  doing  what  he  was  doing,  not  greatly  express- 


MATISSE  291 

ing  something  being  struggling.  Very  many  were  wanting  to  be  doing 
what  he  was  doing  were  not  wanting  to  be  expressing  anything  being 
struggling. 

There  were  very  many  wanting  to  be  doing  what  he  was  doing  that 
is  to  be  one  clearly  expressing  something.  He  was  certainly  a  great  man, 
any  one  could  be  really  certain  of  this  thing,  every  one  could  be  cer- 
tain of  this  thing.  There  were  very  many  who  were  wanting  to  be  ones 
doing  what  he  was  doing  that  is  to  be  ones  clearly  expressing  some- 
thing and  then  very  many  of  them  were  not  wanting  to  be  being  ones 
doing  that  thing,  that  is  clearly  expressing  something,  they  wanted  to 
be  ones  expressing  something  being  struggling,  something  being  going 
to.  be  some  other  thing,  something  being  going  to  be  something  some 
one  sometime  would  be  clearly  expressing  and  that  would  be  something 
that  would  be  a  thing  then  that  would  then  be  greatly  expressing  some 
other  thing  then  that  thing,  certainly  very  many  were  then  not  want- 
ing to  be  doing  what  this  one  was  doing  clearly  expressing  something 
and  some  of  them  had  been  ones  wanting  to  be  doing  that  thing  want- 
ing to  be  ones  clearly  expressing  something.  Some  were  wanting  to  be 
ones  doing  what  this  one  was  doing  wanted  to  be  ones  clearly  expressing 
something.  Some  of  such  of  them  were  ones  certainly  clearly  expressing 
something,  that  was  in  them  a  thing  not  really  interesting  then  any 
other  one.  Some  of  such  of  them  went  on  being  all  their  living  ones 
wanting  to  be  clearly  expressing  something  and  some  of  them  were 
clearly  expressing  something. 

This  one  was  one  very  many  were  knowing  some  and  very  many  were 
glad  to  meet  him,  very  many  sometimes  listened  to  him,  some  listened 
to  him  very  often,  there  were  some  who  listened  to  him,  and  he  talked 
then  and  he  told  them  then  that  certainly  he  had  been  one  suffering 
and  he  was  then  being  one  trying  to  be  certain  that  he  was  wrong  in 
doing  what  he  was  doing  and  he  had  come  then  to  be  certain  that  he 
never  would  be  certain  that  he  was  doing  what  it  was  wrong  for  him 
to  be  doing  then  and  he  was  suffering  then  and  he  was  certain  that  he 
would  be  one  doing  what  he  was  doing  and  he  was  certain  that  he 
should  be  one  doing  what  he  was  doing  and  he  was  certain  that  he  would 
always  be  one  suffering  and  this  then  made  him  certain  this,  that  he 
would  always  be  one  being  suffering,  this  made  him  certain  that  he 
was  expressing  something  being  struggling  and  certainly  very  many 


292  THREE  PORTRAITS  OF  PAINTERS 

were  quite  certain  that  he  was  greatly  expressing  something  being  strug- 
gling. This  one  was  knowing  some  who  were  listening  to  him  and  he 
was  telling  very  often  about  being  one  suffering  and  this  was  not  a 
dreary  thing  to  any  one  hearing  that  then,  it  was  not  a  saddening  thing 
to  any  one  hearing  it  again  and  again,  to  some  it  was  quite  an  interest- 
ing thing  hearing  it  again  and  again,  to  some  it  was  an  exciting  thing 
hearing  it  again  and  again,  some  knowing  this  one  and  being  certain 
that  this  one  was  a  great  man  and  was  one  clearly  expressing  something 
were  ones  hearing  this  one  telling  about  being  one  being  living  were 
hearing  this  one  telling  this  thing  again  and  again.  Some  who  were 
ones  knowing  this  one  and  were  ones  certain  that  this  one  was  one  who 
was  clearly  telling  something,  was  a  great  man,  we/e  not  listening  very 
often  to  this  one  telling  again  and  again  about  being  one  being  living. 
Certainly  some  who  were  certain  that  this  one  was  a  great  man  and 
one  clearly  expressing  something  and  greatly  expressing  something 
being  struggling  were  listening  to  this  one  telling  about  being  living 
telling  about  this  again  and  again  and  again.  Certainly  very  many  know- 
ing this  one  and  being  certain  that  this  one  was  a  great  man  and  that 
this  one  was  clearly  telling  something  were  not  listening  to  this  one 
telling  about  being  living,  were  not  listening  to  this  one  telling  this 
again  and  again. 

This  one  was  certainly  a  great  man,  this  one  was  certainly  clearly  ex- 
pressing something.  Some  were  certain  that  this  one  was  clearly  express- 
ing something  being  struggling,  some  were  certain  that  this  one  was 
not  greatly  expressing  something  being  struggling. 

Very  many  were  not  listening  again  and  again  to  this  one  telling 
about  being  one  being  living.  Some  were  listening  again  and  again  to 
this  one  telling  about  this  one  being  one  being  in  living. 

Some  were  certainly  wanting  to  be  doing  what  this  one  was  doing 
that  is  were  wanting  to  be  ones  clearly  expressing  something.  Some  of 
such  of  them  did  not  go  on  in  being  ones  wanting  to  be  doing  what 
this  one  was  doing  that  is  in  being  ones  clearly  expressing  something. 
Some  went  on  being  ones  wanting  to  be  doing  what  this  one  was  doing 
that  is,  being  ones  clearly  expressing  something.  Certainly  this  one  was 
one  who  was  a  great  man.  Any  one  could  be  certain  of  this  thing.  Every 
one  would  come  to  be  certain  of  this  thing.  This  one  was  one  certainly 
clearly  expressing  something.  Any  one  could  come  to  be  certain  of  this 


PICASSO  293 

thing.  Every  one  would  come  to  be  certain  of  this  thing.  This  one  was 
one,  some  were  quite  certain,  one  greatly  expressing  something  being 
struggling.  This  one  was  one,  some  were  quite  certain,  one  not  greatly 
expressing  something  being  struggling. 


Picasso 


One  whom  some  were  certainly  following  was  one  who  was  completely 
charming.  One  whom  some  were  certainly  following  was  one  who  was 
charming.  One  whom  some  were  following  was  one  who  was  com- 
pletely charming.  One  whom  some  were  following  was  one  who  was 
certainly  completely  charming. 

Some  were  certainly  following  and  were  certain  that  the  one  they 
were  then  following  was  one  working  and  was  one  bringing  out  of 
himself  then  something.  Some  were  certainly  following  and  were  cer- 
tain that  the  one  they  were  then  following  was  one  bringing  out  of  him- 
self then  something  that  was  coming  to  be  a  heavy  thing,  a  solid  thing 
and  a  complete  thing. 

One  whom  some  were  certainly  following  was  one  working  and  cer- 
tainly was  one  bringing  something  out  of  himself  then  and  was  one 
who  had  been  all  his  living  had  been  one  having  something  coming 
out  of  him. 

Something  had  been  coming  out  of  him,  certainly  it  had  been  coming 
out  of  him,  certainly  it  was  something,  certainly  it  had  been  coming 
out  of  him  and  it  had  meaning,  a  charming  meaning,  a  solid  meaning,  a 
struggling  meaning,  a  clear  meaning. 

One  whom  some  were  certainly  following  and  some  were  certainly 
following  him,  one  whom  some  were  certainly  following  was  one  cer- 
tainly working. 

One  whom  some  were  certainly  following  was  one  having  something 


294  THREE  PORTRAITS  OF  PAINTERS 

coming  out  of  him  something  having  meaning  and  this  one  was  cer- 
tainly working  then. 

This  one  was  working  and  something  was  coming  then,  something 
was  coming  out  of  this  one  then.  This  one  was  one  and  always  there 
was  something  coming  out  of  this  one  and  always  there  had  been  some- 
thing coming  out  of  this  one.  This  one  had  never  been  one  not  having 
something  coming  out  of  this  one.  This  one  was  one  having  something 
coming  out  of  this  one.  This  one  had  been  one  whom  some  were  follow- 
ing. This  one  was  one  whom  some  were  following.  This  one  was  being 
one  whom  some  were  following.  This  one  was  one  who  was  working. 

This  one  was  one  who  was  working.  This  one  was  one  being  one 
having  something  being  coming  out  of  him.  This  .one  was  one  going 
on  having  something  come  out  of  him.  This  one  was  one  going  on  work- 
ing. This  one  was  one  whom  some  were  following.  This  one  was  one 
who  was  working. 

This  one  always  had  something  being  coming  out  of  this  one.  This 
one  was  working.  This  one  always  had  been  working.  This  one  was 
always  having  something  that  was  coming  out  of  this  one  that  was  a 
solid  thing,  a  charming  thing,  a  lovely  thing,  a  perplexing  thing,  a  dis- 
concerting thing,  a  simple  thing,  a  cleaj-  thing,  a  complicated  thing,  an 
interesting  thing,  a  disturbing  thing,  a  repellant  thing,  a  very  pretty 
thing.  This  one  was  one  certainly  being  one  having  something  coming 
out  of  him.  This  one  was  one  whom  some  were  following.  This  one  was 
one  who  was  working. 

This  one  was  one  who  was  working  and  certainly  this  one  was  need- 
ing to  be  working  so  as  to  be  one  being  working.  This  one  was  one 
having  something  coming  out  of  him.  This  one  would  be  one  all  his 
living  having  something  coming  out  of  him.  This  one  was  working  and 
then  this  one  was  working  and  this  one  was  needing  to  be  working,  not 
to  be  one  having  something  coming  out  of  him  something  having 
meaning,  but  was  needing  to  be  working  so  as  to  be  one  working. 

This  one  was  certainly  working  and  working  was  something  this  one 
was  certain  this  one  would  be  doing  and  this  one  was  doing  that  thing, 
this  one  was  working.  This  one  was  not  one  completely  working.  This 
one  was  not  ever  completely  working.  This  one  certainly  was  not  com- 
pletely working. 

This  one  was  one  having  always  something  being  coming  out  of  him, 
something  having  completely  a  real  meaning.  This  one  was  one  whom 


PICASSO  295 

some  were  following.  This  one  was  one  who  was  working.  This  one 
was  one  who  was  working  and  he  was  one  needing  this  thing  needing 
to  be  working  so  as  to  be  one  having  some  way  of  being  one  having 
some  way  of  working.  This  one  was  one  who  was  working.  This  one 
was  one  having  something  come  out  of  him  something  having  mean- 
ing. This  one  was  one  always  having  something  come  out  of  him  and 
this  thing  the  thing  coming  out  of  him  always  had  real  meaning.  This 
one  was  one  who  was  working.  This  one  was  one  who  was  almost 
always  working.  This  one  was  not  one  completely  working.  This  one 
was  one  not  ever  completely  working.  This  one  was  not  one  working 
to  have  anything  come  out  of  him.  He  always  did  have  something  having 
meaning  that  did  come  out  of  him.  He  always  did  have  something  come 
out  of  him.  He  was  working,  he  was  not  ever  completely  working.  He 
did  have  some  following.  They  were  always  following  him.  Some  were 
certainly  following  him.  He  was  one  who  was  working.  He  was  one 
having  something  coming  out  of  him  something  having  meaning.  He 
was  not  ever  completely  working. 


Melanctha 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY 


This,  the  second  story  in  THREE  LIVES,  published  first  in  1909  and  fre- 
quently reprinted  since,  is  probably  the  most  generally  admired,  and 
possibly  the  best  known,  wor\  of  Miss  Stein.  Richard  Wright  has  called 
4t  "the  first  long  serious  literary  treatment  of  Negro  life  in  the  United 
States."  In  his  review  of  WARS  I  HAVE  SEEN  published  in  PM,  March  n, 
1945,  the  author  of  BLACK  BOY  further  comments  on  this  story: 
"Prompted  by  random  curiosity  while  I  was  browsing  one  day  in  a  Chi- 
cago Public  Library,  I  tooJ^  from  the  open  shelves  a  tiny  volume  called 
THREE  LIVES  and  looked  at  a  story  in  it,  entitled  MELANCTHA.  The  style 
was  so  insistent  and  original  and  sang  so  quaintly  that  I  too\  the  book 
home. 

"As  1  read  it  my  ears  were  opened  for  the  first 'time  to  the  magic  of 
the  spoken  word.  I  began  to  hear  the  speech  of  my  grandmother,  who 
spol^e  a  deep,  pure  Negro  dialect  and  with  whom  I  had  lived  for  many 
years. 

"All  of  my  life  I  had  been  only  half  hearing,  but  Miss  Stein's  strug* 
gling  words  made  the  speech  of  the  people  around  me  vivid.  From  that 
moment  on,  in  my  attempts  at  writing,  I  was  able  to  tap  at  will  the  vast 
pool  of  living  words  that  swirled  around  me. 

"But  in  the  midst  of  my  delight,  I  was  jolted.  A  left-wing  literary 
critic,  whose  judgment  I  had  been  led  to  respect,  condemned  Miss  Stein 
in  a  sharply-worded  newspaper  article,  implying  that  she  spent  her  days 
reclining  upon  a  silken  couch  in  Paris  smoking  hashish,  that  she  was 
a  hopeless  prey  to  hallucinations  and  that  her  tortured  verbalisms  were 
throttling  the  Revolution.  I  was  disturbed.  Had  I  duped  myself  into 
worshiping  decadence? 

fi Believing  in  direct  action,  I  contrived  a  method  to  gauge  the  degree 
to  which  Miss  Stein  s  prose  was  tainted  with  the  spirit  of  counter-revo- 
lution. I  gathered  a  group  of  semi-literate  Negro  stockyard  workers — 
'basic  proletarians  with  the  instinct  for  revolution9  (am  I  quoting  right?) 
— into  a  Blac\  Belt  basement  and  read  MELANCTHA  aloud  to  them.  They 
understood  every  word.  Enthralled,  they  slapped  their  thighs,  howled, 
laughed,  stomped,  and  interrupted  me  constantly  to  comment  upon  the 
characters. 

"My  fondness  for  Steinian  prose  never  distressed  me  after  that!9 


Each  One  As  She  May 


Rose  Johnson  made  it  very  hard  to  bring  her  baby  to  its  birth. 

Melanctha  Herbert  who  was  Rose  Johnson's  friend,  did  everything 
that  any  woman  could.  She  tended  Rose,  and  she  was  patient,  submis- 
sive, soothing,  and  untiring,  while  the  sullen,  childish,  cowardly,  black 
Rosie  grumbled  and  fussed  and  howled  and  made  herself  to  be  an 
abomination  and  like  a  simple  beast. 

The  child  though  it  was  healthy  after  it  was  born,  did  not  live  long. 
Rose  Johnson  was  careless  and  negligent  and  selfish,  and  when 
Melanctha  had  to  leave  for  a  few  days,  the  baby  died.  Rose  Johnson 
had  liked  the  baby  well  enough  and  perhaps  she  just  forgot  it  for  awhile, 
anyway  the  child  was  dead  and  Rose  and  Sam  her  husband  were  very 
sorry  but  then  these  things  came  so  often  in  the  negro  world  in  Bridge- 
point,  that  they  neither  of  them  thought  about  it  very  long. 

Rose  Johnson  and  Melanctha  Herbert  had  been  friends  now  for  some 
years.  Rose  had  lately  married  Sam  Johnson  a  decent  honest  kindly 
fellow,  a  deck  hand  on  a  coasting  steamer. 

Melanctha  Herbert  had  not  yet  been  really  married. 

Rose  Johnson  was  a  real  black,  tall,  well  built,  sullen,  stupid,  child- 
like, good  looking  negress.  She  laughed  when  she  was  happy  and  grum- 
bled and  was  sullen  with  everything  that  troubled. 

Rose  Johnson  was  a  real  black  negress  but  she  had  been  brought  up 
quite  like  their  own  child  by  white  folks. 

Rose  laughed  when  she  was  happy  but  she  had  not  the  wide,  aban- 
doned laughter  that  makes  the  warm  broad  glow  of  negro  sunshine. 
Rose  was  never  joyous  with  the  earth-born,  boundless  joy  of  negroes. 
Hers  was  just  ordinary,  any  sort  of  woman  laughter. 

Rose  Johnson  was  careless  and  was  lazy,  but  she  had  been  brought 
up  by  white  folks  and  she  needed  decent  comfort.  Her  white  training 
had  only  made  for  habits,  not  for  nature.  Rose  had  the  simple,  promis- 
cuous unmorality  of  the  black  people. 

299 


300  MELANCTHA 

Rose  Johnson  and  Melanctha  Herbert  like  many  of  the  twos  with 
women  were  a  curious  pair  to  be  such  friends. 

Melanctha  Herbert  was  a  graceful,  pale  yellow,  intelligent,  attractive 
negress.  She  had  not  been  raised  like  Rose  by  white  folks  but  then  she 
had  been  half  made  with  real  white  blood. 

She  and  Rose  Johnson  were  both  of  the  better  sort  of  negroes,  there, 
in  Bridgepoint. 

"No,  I  ain't  no  common  nigger,"  said  Rose  Johnson,  "for  I  was  raised 
by  white  folks,  and  Melanctha  she  is  so  bright  and  learned  so  much 
in  school,  she  ain't  no  common  nigger  either,  though  she  ain't  got  no 
husband  to  be  married  to  like  I  am  to  Sam  Johnson." 

Why  did  the  subtle,  intelligent,  attractive,  half  white  girl  Melanctha 
Herbert  love  and  do  for  and  demean  herself  in  service  to  this  coarse, 
decent,  sullen,  ordinary,  black  childish  Rose,  and  why  was  this  unmoral, 
promiscuous,  shiftless  Rose  married,  and  that's  not  so  common  either, 
to  a  good  man  of  the  negroes,  while  Melanctha  with  her  white  blood 
and  attraction  and  her  desire  for  a  right  position  had  not  yet  been  really 
married. 

Sometimes  the  thought  of  how  all  her  world  was  made,  filled  the 
complex,  desiring  Melanctha  with  despair.  She  wondered,  often,  how 
she  could  go  on  living  when  she  was  so  blue. 

Melanctha  told  Rose  one  day  how  a  woman  whom  she  knew  had 
killed  herself  because  she  was  so  blue.  Melanctha  said,  sometimes,  she 
thought  this  was  the  best  thing  for  her  herself  to  do. 

Rose  Johnson  did  not  see  it  the  least  bit  that  way. 

"I  don't  see  Melanctha  why  you  should  talk  like  you  would  kill  your- 
self just  because  you're  blue.  I'd  never  kill  myself  Melanctha  just  'cause 
I  was  blue.  I'd  maybe  kill  somebody  else  Melanctha  'cause  I  was  blue, 
but  I'd  never  kill  myself.  If  I  ever  killed  myself  Melanctha  it'd  be  by 
accident,  and  if  I  ever  killed  myself  by  accident  Melanctha,  I'd  be  awful 
sorry." 

Rose  Johnson  and  Melanctha  Herbert  had  first  met,  one  night,  at 
church.  Rose  Johnson  did  not  care  much  for  religion.  She  had  not 
enough  emotion  to  be  really  roused  by  a  revival.  Melanctha  Herbert 
had  not  come  yet  to  know  how  to  use  religion.  She  was  still  too  complex 
with  desire.  However,  the  two  of  them  in  negro  fashion  went  very  often 
to  the  negro  church,  along  with  all  their  friends,  and  they  slowly  came 
to  know  each  other  very  well. 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  301 

Rose  Johnson  had  been  raised  not  as  a  servant  but  quite  like  their 
own  child  by  white  folks.  Her  mother  who  had  died  when  Rose  was 
still  a  baby,  had  been  a  trusted  servant  in  the  family.  Rose  was  a  cute, 
attractive,  good  looking  little  black  girl  and  these  people  had  no  children 
of  their  own  and  so  they  kept  Rose  in  their  house. 

As  Rose  grew  older  she  drifted  from  her  white  folks  back  to  the 
colored  people,  and  she  gradually  no  longer  lived  in  the  old  house. 
Then  it  happened  that  these  people  went  away  to  some  other  town  to 
live,  and  somehow  Rose  stayed  behind  in  Bridgepoint.  Her  white  folks 
left  a  little  money  to  take  care  of  Rose,  and  this  money  she  got  every 
little  while. 

Rose  now  in  the  easy  fashion  of  the  poor  lived  with  one  woman  in  her 
house,  and  then  for  no  reason  went  and  lived  with  some  other  woman 
in  her  house.  All  this  time,  too,  Rose  kept  company,  and  was  engaged, 
first  to  this  colored  man  and  then  to  that  and  always  she  made  sure  she 
was  engaged,  for  Rose  had  strong  the  sense  of  proper  conduct. 

"No,  I  ain't  no  common  nigger  just  to  go  around  with  any  man,  nor 
you  Melanctha  shouldn't  neither,"  she  said  one  day  when  she  was  telling 
the  complex  and  less  sure  Melanctha  what  was  the  right  way  for  her 
to  do.  "No  Melanctha,  I  ain't  no  common  nigger  to  do  so,  for  I  was 
raised  by  white  folks.  You  know  very  well  Melanctha  that  I'se  always 
been  engaged  to  them." 

And  so  Rose  lived  on,  always  comfortable  and  rather  decent  and  very 
lazy  and  very  well  content. 

After  she  had  lived  some  time  this  way,  Rose  thought  it  would  be 
nice  and  very  good  in  her  position  to  get  regularly  really  married.  She 
had  lately  met  Sam  Johnson  somewhere,  and  she  liked  him  and  she 
knew  he  was  a  good  man,  and  then  he  had  a  place  where  he  worked 
every  day  and  got  good  wages.  Sam  Johnson  liked  Rose  very  well  and 
he  was  quite  ready  to  be  married.  One  day  they  had  a  grand  real  wed- 
ding and  were  married.  Then  with  Melanctha  Herbert's  help  to  do  the 
sewing  and  the  nicer  work,  they  furnished  comfortably  a  little  red  brick 
house.  Sam  then  went  back  to  his  work  as  deck  hand  on  a  coasting 
steamer,  and  Rose  stayed  home  in  her  house  and  sat  and  bragged  to  all 
her  friends  how  nice  it  was  to  be  married  really  to  a  husband. 

Life  went  on  very  smoothly  with  them  all  the  year.  Rose  was  lazy 
but  not  dirty  and  Sam  was  careful  but  not  fussy,  and  then  there  was 
Melanctha  to  come  in  every  day  and  help  to  keep  things  neat. 


302  MELANCTHA 

When  Rose's  baby  was  coming  to  be  born,  Rose  came  to  stay  in  the 
house  where  Melanctha  Herbert  lived  just  then,  with  a  big  good  natured 
colored  woman  who  did  washing. 

Rose  went  there  to  stay,  so  that  she  might  have  the  doctor  from  the 
hospital  near  by  to  help  her  have  the  baby,  and  then,  too,  Melanctha 
could  attend  to  her  while  she  was  sick. 

Here  the  baby  was  born,  and  here  it  died,  and  then  Rose  went  back 
to  her  house  again  with  Sam. 

Melanctha  Herbert  had  not  made  her  life  all  simple  like  Rose  John- 
son. Melanctha  had  not  found  it  easy  with  herself  to  make  her  wants 
and  what  she  had,  agree. 

Melanctha  Herbert  was  always  losing  what  she  had  in  wanting  all 
the  things  she  saw.  Melanctha  was  always  being  left  when  she  was  not 
leaving  others. 

Melanctha  Herbert  always  loved  too  hard  and  much  too  often.  She 
was  always  full  with  mystery  and  subtle  movements  and  denials  and 
vague  distrusts  and  complicated  disillusions.  Then  Melanctha  would 
be  sudden  and  impulsive  and  unbounded  in  some  faith,  and  then  she 
would  suffer  and  be  strong  in  her  repression. 

Melanctha  Herbert  was  always  seeking  rest  and  quiet,  and  always 
she  could  only  find  new  ways  to  be  in  trouble. 

Melanctha  wondered  often  how  it  was  she  did  not  kill  herself  when 
she  was  so  blue.  Often  she  thought  this  would  be  really  the  best  way  for 
her  to  do. 

Melanctha  Herbert  had  been  raised  to  be  religious,  by  her  mother. 
Melanctha  had  not  liked  her  mother  very  well.  This  mother,  'Mis'  Her- 
bert, as  her  neighbors  called  her,  had  been  a  sweet  appearing  and  dig- 
nified and  pleasant,  pale  yellow,  colored  woman.  'Mis'  Herbert  had 
always  been  a  little  wandering  and  mysterious  and  uncertain  in  her 
ways. 

Melanctha  was  pale  yellow  and  mysterious  and  a  little  pleasant  like 
her  mother,  but  the  real  power  in  Melanctha's  nature  came  through  her 
robust  and  unpleasant  and  very  unendurable  black  father. 

Melanctha's  father  only  used  to  come  to  where  Melanctha  and  her 
mother  lived,  once  in  a  while. 

It  was  many  years  now  that  Melanctha  had  not  heard  or  seen  or  known 
of  anything  her  father  did. 

Melanctha  Herbert  almost  always  hated  her  black  father,  but  she 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  303 

loved  very  well  the  power  in  herself  that  came  through  him.  And  so  her 
feeling  was  really  closer  to  her  black  coarse  father,  than  her  feeling  had 
ever  been  toward  her  pale  yellow,  sweet-appearing  mother.  The  things 
she  had  in  her  of  her  mother  never  made  her  feel  respect. 

Melanctha  Herbert  had  not  loved  herself  in  childhood.  All  of  her 
youth  was  bitter  to  remember. 

Melanctha  had  not  loved  her  father  and  her  mother  and  they  had 
found  it  very  troublesome  to  have  her. 

Melanctha's  mother  and  her  father  had  been  regularly  married.  Me- 
lanctha's  father  was  a  big  black  virile  negro.  He  only  came  once  in 
a  while  to  where  Melanctha  and  her  mother  lived,  but  always  that 
pleasant,  sweet-appearing,  pale  yellow  woman,  mysterious  and  uncer- 
tain and  wandering  in  her  ways,  was  close  in  sympathy  and  thinking 
to  her  big  black  virile  husband. 

James  Herbert  was  a  common,  decent  enough,  colored  workman, 
brutal  and  rough  to  his  one  daughter,  but  then  she  was  a  most  dis- 
turbing child  to  manage. 

The  young  Melanctha  did  not  love  her  father  and  her  mother,  and 
she  had  a  breakneck  courage,  and  a  tongue  that  could  be  very  nasty. 
Then,  too,  Melanctha  went  to  school  and  was  very  quick  in  all  the 
learning,  and  she  knew  very  well  how  to  use  this  knowledge  to  annoy 
her  parents  who  knew  nothing. 

Menanctha  Herbert  had  always  had  a  breakneck  courage.  Melanc- 
tha always  loved  to  be  with  horses;  she  loved  to  do  wild  things,  to 
ride  the  horses  and  to  break  and  tame  them. 

Melanctha,  when  she  was  a  little  girl,  had  had  a  good  chance  to  live 
with  horses.  Near  where  Melanctha  and  her  mother  lived  was  the 
stable  of  the  Bishops,  a  rich  family  who  always  had  fine  horses. 

John,  the  Bishops'  coachman,  liked  Melanctha  very  well  and  he 
always  let  her  do  anything  she  wanted  with  the  horses.  John  was 
a  decent,  vigorous  mulatto  with  a  prosperous  house  and  wife  and 
children.  Melanctha  Herbert  was  older  than  any  of  his  children.  She 
was  now  a  well  grown  girl  of  twelve  and  just  beginning  as  a  woman. 

James  Herbert,  Melanctha's  father,  knew  this  John,  the  Bishops' 
coachman  very  well. 

One  day  James  Herbert  came  to  where  his  wife  and  daughter  lived, 
and  he  was  furious. 

"Where's  that  Melanctha  girl  of  yours,"  he  said  fiercely,  "if  she  is 


304  MELANCTHA 

to  the  Bishops'  stables  again,  with  that  man  John,  I  swear  I  kill  her. 
Why  don't  you  see  to  that  girl  better  you,  you're  her  mother." 

James  Herbert  was  a  powerful,  loose  built,  hard  handed,  black, 
angry  negro.  Herbert  never  was  a  joyous  negro.  Even  when  he  drank 
with  other  men,  and  he  did  that  very  often,  he  was  never  really  joyous. 
In  the  days  when  he  had  been  most  young  and  free  and  open,  he  had 
never  had  the  wide  abandoned  laughter  that  gives  the  broad  glow  to 
negro  sunshine. 

His  daughter,  Melanctha  Herbert,  later  always  made  a  hard  forced 
laughter.  She  was  only  strong  and  sweet  and  in  her  nature  when  she 
was  really  deep  in  trouble,  when  she  was  fighting  so  with  all  she 
really  had,  that  she  did  not  use  her  laughter.  This  was  always  true  of 
poor  Melanctha  who  was  so  certain  that  she  hated  trouble.  Melanctha 
Herbert  was  always  seeking  peace  and  quiet,  and  she  could  always 
only  find  new  ways  to  get  excited. 

James  Herbert  was  often  a  very  angry  negro.  He  was  fierce  and 
serious,  and  he  was  very  certain  that  he  often  had  good  reason  to  be 
angry  with  Melanctha,  who  knew  so  well  how  to  be  nasty,  and  to  use 
her  learning  with  a  father  who  knew  nothing. 

James  Herbert  often  drank  with  John,  the  Bishops'  coachman.  John 
in  his  good  nature  sometimes  tried  to  soften  Herbert's  feeling  toward 
Melanctha.  Not  that  Melanctha  ever  complained  to  John  of  her  home 
life  or  her  father.  It  was  never  Melanctha's  way,  even  in  the  midst  of 
her  worst  trouble  to  complain  to  any  one  of  what  happened  to  her, 
but  nevertheless  somehow  every  one  who  knew  Melanctha  always 
knew  how  much  she  suffered.  It  was  only  while  one  really  loved 
Melanctha  that  one  understood  how  to  forgive  her,  that  she  never 
once  complained  nor  looked  unhappy,  and  was  always  handsome  and 
in  spirits,  and  yet  one  always  knew  how  much  she  suffered. 

The  father,  James  Herbert,  never  told  his  troubles  either,  and  he 
was  so  fierce  and  serious  that  no  one  ever  thought  of  asking. 

'Mis'  Herbert  as  her  neighbors  called  her  was  never  heard  even  to 
speak  of  her  husband  or  her  daughter.  She  was  always  pleasant,  sweet- 
appearing,  mysterious  and  uncertain,  and  a  little  wandering  in  her 
ways. 

The  Herberts  were  a  silent  family  with  their  troubles,  but  somehow 
every  one  who  knew  them  always  knew  everything  that  happened. 

The  morning  of  one  day  when  in  the  evening  Herbert  and  the 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  305 

coachman  John  were  to  meet  to  drink  together,  Melanctha  had  to 
come  to  the  stable  joyous  and  in  the  very  best  of  humors.  Her  good 
friend  John  on  this  morning  felt  very  firmly  how  good  and  sweet  she 
was  and  how  very  much  she  suffered. 

John  was  a  very  decent  colored  coachman.  When  he  thought  about 
Melanctha  it  was  as  if  she  were  the  eldest  of  his  children.  Really  he 
felt  very  strongly  the  power  in  her  of  a  woman.  John's  wife  always 
liked  Melanctha  and  she  always  did  all  she  could  to  make  things 
pleasant.  And  Melanctha  all  her  life  loved  and  respected  kind  and 
good  and  considerate  people.  Melanctha  always  loved  and  wanted 
peace  and  gentleness  and  goodness  and  all  her  life  for  herself  poor 
Melanctha  could  only  find  new  ways  to  be  in  trouble. 

This  evening  after  John  and  Herbert  had  drunk  awhile  together, 
the  good  John  began  to  tell  the  father  what  a  fine  girl  he  had  for  a 
daughter.  Perhaps  the  good  John  had  been  drinking  a  good  deal  of 
liquor,  perhaps  there  was  a  gleam  of  something  softer  than  the  feel- 
ing of  a  friendly  elder  in  the  way  John  then  spoke  of  Melanctha. 
There  had  been  a  good  deal  of  drinking  and  John  certainly  that  very 
morning  had  felt  strongly  Melanctha's  power  as  a  woman.  James  Her- 
bert was  always  a  fierce,  suspicious,  serious  negro,  and  drinking  never 
made  him  feel  more  open.  He  looked  very  black  and  evil  as  he  sat 
and  listened  while  John  grew  more  and  more  admiring  as  he  talked 
half  to  himself,  half  to  the  father,  of  the  virtues  and  sweetness  of 
Melanctha. 

Suddenly  between  them  there  came  a  moment  filled  full  with  strong 
black  curses,  and  then  sharp  razors  flashed  in  the  black  hands,  that  held 
them  flung  backward  in  the  negro  fashion,  and  then  for  some  minutes 
there  was  fierce  slashing. 

John  was  a  decent,  pleasant,  good  natured,  light  brown  negro,  but  he 
knew  how  to  use  a  razor  to  do  bloody  slashing. 

When  the  two  men  were  pulled  apart  by  the  other  negroes  who  were 
in  the  room  drinking,  John  had  not  been  much  wounded  but  James 
Herbert  had  gotten  one  good  strong  cut  that  went  from  his  right  shoul- 
der down  across  the  front  of  his  whole  body.  Razor  fighting  does  not 
wound  very  deeply,  but  it  makes  a  cut  that  looks  most  nasty,  for  it  is 
so  very  bloody. 

Herbert  was  held  by  the  other  negroes  until  he  was  cleaned  and 
plastered,  and  then  he  was  put  to  bed  to  sleep  off  his  drink  and  fighting. 


306  MELANCTHA 

The  next  day  he  came  to  'where  his  wife  and  daughter  lived  and  he 
was  furious. 

"Where's  that  Melanctha,  of  yours?"  he  said  to  his  wife,  when  he 
saw  her.  "If  she  is  to  the  Bishops'  stables  now  with  that  yellow  John,  I 
swear  I  kill  her.  A  nice  way  she  is  going  for  a  decent  daughter.  Why 
don't  you  see  to  that  girl  better  you,  ain't  you  her  mother!" 

Melanctha  Herbert  had  always  been  old  in  all  her  ways  and  she  knew 
very  early  how  to  use  her  power  as  a  woman,  and  yet  Melanctha  with 
all  her  inborn  intense  wisdom  was  really  very  ignorant  of  evil.  Melanctha 
had  not  yet  come  to  understand  what  they  meant,  the  things  she  so 
often  heard  around  her,  and  which  were  just  beginning  to  stir  strongly 
in  her. 

Now  when  her  father  began  fiercely  to  assail  her,  she  did  not  really 
know  what  it  was  that  he  was  so  furious  to  force  from  her.  In  every 
way  that  he  could  think  of  in  his  anger,  he  tried  to  make  her  say  a  thing 
she  did  not  really  know.  She  held  out  and  never  answered  anything  he 
asked  her,  for  Melanctha  had  a  breakneck  courage  and  she  just  then 
badly  hated  her  black  father. 

When  the  excitement  was  all  over,  Melanctha  began  to  know  her 
power,  the  power  she  had  so  often  felt  stirring  within  her  and  which 
she  now  knew  she  could  use  to  make  her  stronger. 

James  Herbert  did  not  win  his  fight  with  his  daughter.  After  awhile 
he  forgot  it  as  he  soon  forgot  John  and  the  cut  of  his  sharp  razor. 

Melanctha  almost  forgot  to  hate  her  father,  in  her  strong  interest  in  the 
power  she  now  knew  she  had  within  her. 

Melanctha  did  not  care  much  now,  any  longer,  to  see  John  or  his  wife 
or  even  the  fine  horses.  This  life  was  too  quiet  and  accustomed  and  no 
longer  stirred  her  to  any  interest  or  excitement. 

Melanctha  now  really  was  beginning  as  a  woman.  She  was  ready, 
and  she  began  to  search  in  the  streets  and  in  dark  corners  to  discover 
men  and  to  learn  their  natures  and  their  various  ways  of  working. 

In  these  next  years  Melanctha  learned  many  ways  that  lead  to  wisdom. 
She  learned  the  ways,  and  dimly  in  the  distance  she  saw  wisdom.  These 
years  of  learning  led  very  straight  to  trouble  for  Melanctha,  though  in 
these  years  Melanctha  never  did  or  meant  anything  that  was  really 
wrong. 

Girls  who  are  brought  up  with  care  and  watching  can  always  find 
moments  to  escape  into  the  world,  where  they  may  learn  the  ways  that 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  307 

lead  to  wisdom.  For  a  girl  raised  like  Melanctha  Herbert,  such  escape 
was  always  very  simple.  Often  she  was  alone,  sometimes  she  was  with 
a  fellow  seeker,  and  she  strayed  and  stood,  sometimes  by  railroad  yards, 
sometimes  on  the  docks  or  around  new  buildings  where  many  men  were 
working.  Then  when  the  darkness  covered  everything  all  over,  she 
would  begin  to  learn  to  know  this  man  or  that.  She  would  advance, 
they  would  respond,  and  then  she  would  withdraw  a  little,  dimly,  and 
always  she  did  not  know  what  it  was  that  really  held  her.  Sometimes  she 
would  almost  go  over,  and  then  the  strength  in  her  of  not  really  know- 
ing, would  stop  the  average  man  in  his  endeavor.  It  was  a  strange  ex- 
perience of  ignorance  and  power  and  desire.  Melanctha  did  not  know 
what  it  was  that  she  so  badly  wanted.  She  was  afraid,  and  yet  she  did 
not  understand  that  here  she  really  was  a  coward. 

Boys  had  never  meant  much  to  Melanctha.  They  had  always  been 
too  young  to  content  her.  Melanctha  had  a  strong  respect  for  any  kind 
of  successful  power.  It  was  this  that  always  kept  Melanctha  nearer,  in 
her  feeling  toward  her  virile  and  unendurable  black  father,  than  she 
ever  was  in  her  feeling  for  her  pale  yellow,  sweet-appearing  mother. 
The  things  she  had  in  her  of  her  mother,  never  made  her  feel  respect. 

In  these  young  days,  it  was  only  men  that  for  Melanctha  held  any- 
thing there  was  of  knowledge  and  power.  It  was  not  from  men  however 
that  Melanctha  learned  to  really  understand  this  power. 

From  the  time  that  Melanctha  was  twelve  until  she  was  sixteen  she 
wandered,  always  seeking  but  never  more  than  very  dimly  seeing  wis- 
dom. All  this  time  Melanctha  went  on  with  her  school  learning;  she 
went  to  school  rather  longer  than  do  most  of  the  colored  children. 

Melanctha's  wanderings  after  wisdom  she  always  had  to  do  in  secret 
and  by  snatches,  for  her  mother  was  then  still  living  and  'Mis'  Herbert 
always  did  some  watching,  and  Melanctha  with  all  her  hard  courage 
dreaded  that  there  should  be  much  telling  to  her  father,  who  came  now 
quite  often  to  where  Melanctha  lived  with  her  mother. 

In  these  days  Melanctha  talked  and  stood  and  walked  with  many 
kinds  of  men,  but  she  did  not  learn  to  know  any  of  them  very  deeply. 
They  all  supposed  her  to  have  world  knowledge  and  experience.  They, 
believing  that  she  knew  all,  told  her  nothing,  and  thinking  that  she  was 
deciding  with  them,  asked  for  nothing,  and  so  though  Melanctha  wan- 
dered widely,  she  was  really  very  safe  with  all  the  wandering. 

It  was  a  very  wonderful  experience  this  safety  of  Melanctha  in  these 


308  MELANCTHA 

days  of  her  attempted  learning.  Melanctha  herself  did  not  feel  the  won- 
der, she  only  knew  that  for  her  it  all  had  no  real  value. 

Melanctha  all  her  life  was  very  keen  in  her  sense  for  real  experience. 
.She  knew  she  was  not  getting  what  she  so  badly  wanted,  but  with  all 
her  breakneck  courage  Melanctha  here  was  a  coward,  and  so  she  could 
not  learn  to  really  understand. 

Melanctha  liked  to  wander,  and  to  stand  by  the  railroad  yard,  and 
watch  the  men  and  the  engines  and  the  switches  and  everything  that 
was  busy  there,  working.  Railroad  yards  are  a  ceaseless  fascination.  They 
satisfy  every  kind  of  nature.  For  the  lazy  man  whose  blood  flows  very 
slowly,  it  is  a  steady  soothing  world  of  motion  which  supplies  him  with 
the  sense  of  a  strong  moving  power.  He  need  not  work  and  yet  he  has 
it  very  deeply;  he  has  it  even  better  than  the  man  who  works  in  it  or 
owns  it.  Then  for  natures  that  like  to  feel  emotion  without  the  trouble 
of  having  any  suffering,  it  is  very  nice  to  get  the  swelling  in  the  throat, 
and  the  fullness,  and  the  heart  beats,  and  all  the  flutter  of  excitement 
that  comes  as  one  watches  the  people  come  and  go,  and  hears  the  engine 
pound  and  give  a  long  drawn  whistle.  For  a  child  watching  through  a 
hole  in  the  fence  above  the  yord,  it  is  a  wonderful  world  of  mystery 
and  movement.  The  child  loves  all  the  noise,  and  then  it  loves  the  silence 
of  the  wind  that  comes  before  the  full  rush  of  the  pounding  train,  that 
bursts  out  from  the  tunnel  where  it  lost  itself  and  all  its  noise  in  dark- 
ness, and  the  child  loves  all  the  smoke,  that  sometimes  comes  in  rings, 
and  always  puffs  with  fire  and  blue  color. 

For  Melanctha  the  yard  was  full  of  the  excitement  of  many  men, 
and  perhaps  a  free  and  whirling  future. 

Melanctha  came  here  very  often  and  watched  the  men  and  all  the 
things  that  were  so  busy  working.  The  men  always  had  time  for,  "Hullo 
Sis,  do  you  want  to  sit  on  my  engine,"  and,  "Hullo,  that's  a  pretty  lookin' 
yaller  girl,  do  you  want  to  come  and  see  him  cookin." 

All  the  colored  porters  liked  Melanctha.  They  often  told  her  exciting 
things  that  had  happened;  how  in  the  West  they  went  through  big  tun- 
nels where  there  was  no  air  to  breathe,  and  then  out  and  winding  around 
edges  of  great  canyons  on  thin  high  spindling  trestles,  and  sometimes 
cars,  and  sometimes  whole  trains  fell  from  the  narrow  bridges,  and  al- 
ways up  from  the  dark  places  death  and  all  kinds  of  queer  devils  looked 
up  and  laughed  in  their  faces.  And  then  they  would  tell  how  sometimes 
when  the  train  went  pounding  down  steep  slippery  mountains,  great 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  309 

rocks  would  racket  and  roll  down  around  them,  and  sometimes  would 
smash  in  the  car  and  kill  men;  and  as  the  porters  told  these  stories  their 
round,  black,  shining  faces  would  grow  solemn,  and  their  color  would 
go  grey  beneath  the  greasy  black,  and  their  eyes  would  roll  white  in  the 
fear  and  wonder  of  the  things  they  could  scare  themselves  by  telling. 

There  was  one,  big,  serious,  melancholy,  light  brown  porter  who  often 
told  Melanctha  stories,  for  he  liked  the  way  she  had  of  listening  with 
intelligence  and  sympathetic  feeling,  when  he  told  how  the  white  men 
in  the  far  South  tried  to  kill  him  because  he  made  one  of  them  who  was 
drunk  and  called  him  a  damned  nigger,  and  who  refused  to  pay  money 
for  his  chair  to  a  nigger,  get  off  the  train  between  stations.  And  then 
this  porter  had  to  give  up  going  to  that  part  of  the  Southern  country, 
for  all  the  white  men  swore  that  if  he  ever  came  there  again  they  would 
surely  kill  him. 

Melanctha  liked  this  serious,  melancholy  light  brown  negro  very  well, 
and  all  her  life  Melanctha  wanted  and  respected  gentleness  and  good- 
ness, and  this  man  always  gave  her  good  advice  and  serious  kindness, 
and  Melanctha  felt  such  things  very  deeply,  but  she  could  never  let  them 
help  her  or  affect  her  to  change  the  ways  that  always  made  her  keep 
herself  in  trouble. 

Melanctha  spent  many  of  the  last  hours  of  the  daylight  with  the  por- 
ters and  with  other  men  who  worked  hard,  but  when  darkness  came 
it  was  always  different.  Then  Melanctha  would  find  herself  with  the, 
for  her,  gentlemanly  classes.  A  clerk,  or  a  young  express  agent  would 
begin  to  know  her,  and  they  would  stand,  or  perhaps,  walk  a  little  while 
together. 

Melanctha  always  made  herself  escape  but  often  it  was  with  an  effort. 
She  did  not  know  what  it  was  that  she  so  badly  wanted,  but  with  all  her 
courage  Melanctha  here  was  a  coward,  and  so  she  could  not  learn  to 
understand. 

Melanctha  and  some  man  would  stand  in  the  evening  and  would  talk 
together.  Sometimes  Melanctha  would  be  with  another  girl  and  then 
it  was  much  easier  to  stay  or  to  escape,  for  then  they  could  make  way 
for  themselves  together,  and  by  throwing  words  and  laughter  to  each 
other,  could  keep  a  man  from  getting  too  strong  in  his  attention. 

But  when  Melanctha  was  alone,  and  she  was  so,  very  often,  she  would 
sometimes  come  very  near  to  making  a  long  step  on  the  road  that  leads 
to  wisdom.  Some  man  would  learn  a  good  deal  about  her  in  the  talk, 


310  MELANCTHA 

never  altogether  truly,  for  Melanctha  all  her  life  did  not  know  how  to 
tell  a  story  wholly.  She  always,  and  yet  not  with  intention,  managed 
to  leave  out  big  pieces  which  make  a  story  very  different,  for  when  it 
came  to  what  had  happened  and  what  she  had  said  and  what  it  was 
that  she  had  really  done,  Melanctha  never  could  remember  right.  The 
man  would  sometimes  come  a  little  nearer,  would  detain  her,  would 
hold  her  arm  or  make  his  jokes  a  little  clearer,  and  then  Melanctha 
would  always  make  herself  escape.  The  man  thinking  that  she  really 
had  world  wisdom  would  not  make  his  meaning  clear,  and  believing 
that  she  was  deciding  with  him  he  never  went  so  fast  that  he  could  stop 
her  when  at  last  she  made  herself  escape. 

And  so  Melanctha  wandered  on  the  edge  of  wisdom.  "Say,  Sis,  why 
don't  you  when  you  come  here  stay  a  little  longer?"  they  would  all  ask 
her,  and  they  would  hold  her  for  an  answer,  and  she  would  laugh,  and 
sometimes  she  did  stay  longer,  but  always  just  in  time  she  made  herself 
escape. 

Melanctha  Herbert  wanted  very  much  to  know  and  yet  she  feared 
the  knowledge.  As  she  grew  older  she  often  stayed  a  good  deal  longer, 
and  sometimes  it  was  almost  a  balanced  struggle,  but  she  always  made 
herself  escape. 

Next  to  the  railroad  yard  it  was  the  shipping  docks  that  Melanctha 
loved  best  when  she  wandered.  Often  she  was  alone,  sometimes  she  was 
with  some  better  kind  of  black  girl,  and  she  would  stand  a  long  time  and 
watch  the  men  working  at  unloading,  and  see  the  steamers  do  their 
coaling,  and  she  would  listen  with  full  feeling  to  the  yowling  of  the 
free  swinging  negroes,  as  they  ran,  with  their  powerful  loose  jointed 
bodies  and  their  childish  savage  yelling,  pushing,  carrying,  pulling  great 
loads  from  the  ships  to  the  warehouses. 

The  men  would  call  out,  "Say,  Sis,  look  out  or  we'll  come  and  catch 
yer,"  or  "Hi,  there,  you  yaller  girl,  come  here  and  we'll  take  you  sailin'." 
And  then,  too,  Melanctha  would  learn  to  know  some  of  the  serious 
foreign  sailors  who  told  her  all  sorts  of  wonders,  and  a  cook  would  some- 
times take  her  and  her  friends  over  a  ship  and  show  where  he  made 
his  messes  and  where  the  men  slept,  and  where  the  shops  were,  and 
how  everything  was  made  by 'themselves,  right  there,  on  ship  board. 

Melanctha  loved  to  see  these  dark  and  smelly  places.  She  always  loved 
to  watch  and  talk  and  listen  with  men  who  worked  hard.  But  it  was 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  311 

never  from  these  rougher  people  that  Melanctha  tried  to  learn  the  ways 
that  lead  to  wisdom.  In  the  daylight  she  always  liked  to  talk  with  rough 
men  and  to  listen  to  their  lives  and  about  their  work  and  their  various 
ways  of  doing,  but  when  the  darkness  covered  everything  all  over,  Me- 
lanctha would  meet,  and  stand,  and  talk  with  a  clerk  or  a  young  ship- 
ping agent  who  had  seen  her  watching,  and  so  it  was  that  she  would 
try  to  learn  to  understand. 

And  then  Melanctha  was  fond  of  watching  men  work  on  new  build- 
ings. She  loved  to  see  them  hoisting,  digging,  sawing  and  stone  cutting. 
Here,  too,  in  the  daylight,  she  always  learned  to  know  the  common 
workmen.  "Heh,  Sis,  look  out  or  that  rock  will  fall  on  you  and  smash 
you  all  up  into  little  pieces.  Do  you  think  you  would  make  a  nice  jelly?" 
And  then  they  would  all  laugh  and  feel  that  their  jokes  were  very  funny. 
And  "Say,  you  pretty  yaller  girl,  would  it  scare  you  bad  to  stand  up  here 
on  top  where  I  be  ?  See  if  you've  got  grit  and  come  up  here  where  I  can 
hold  you.  All  you  got  to  do  is  to  sit  still  on  that  there  rock  that  they're 
just  hoistin',  and  then  when  you  get  here  I'll  hold  you  tight,  don't  you 
be  scared  Sis." 

Sometimes  Melanctha  would  do  some  of  these  things  that  had  much 
danger,  and  always  with  such  men,  she  showed  her  power  and  her 
breakneck  courage.  Once  she  slipped  and  fell  from  a  high  place.  A  work- 
man caught  her  and  so  she  was  not  killed,  but  her  left  arm  was  badly 
broken. 

All  the  men  crowded  around  her.  They  admired  her  boldness  in  doing 
and  in  bearing  pain  when  her  arm  was  broken.  They  all  went  along 
with  her  with  great  respect  to  the  doctor,  and  then  they  took  her  home 
in  triumph  and  all  of  them  were  bragging  about  her  not  squealing. 

James  Herbert  was  home  where  his  wife  lived,  that  day.  He  was 
furious  when  he  saw  the  workmen  and  Melanctha.  He  drove  the  men 
away  with  curses  so  that  they  were  all  very  nearly  fighting,  and  he  would 
not  let  a  doctor  come  in  to  attend  Melanctha.  "Why  don't  you  see  to 
that  girl  better,  you,  you're  her  mother." 

James  Herbert  did  not  fight  things  out  now  any  more  with  his  daugh- 
ter. He  feared  her  tongue,  and  her  school  learning,  and  the  way  she  had 
of  saying  things  that  were  very  nasty  to  a  brutal  black  man  who  knew 
nothing.  And  Melanctha  just  then  hated  him  very  badly  in  her  suffering. 

And  so  this  was  the  way  Melanctha  lived  the  four  years  of  her  begin- 


312  MELANCTHA 

ning  as  a  woman.  And  many  things  happened  to  Melanctha,  but  she 
knew  very  well  that  none  of  them  had  led  her  on  to  the  right  way,  that 
certain  way  that  was  to  lead  her  to  world  wisdom. 

Melanctha  Herbert  was  sixteen  when  she  first  met  Jane  Harden.  Jane 
was  a  negress,  but  she  was  so  white  that  hardly  any  one  could  guess  it. 
Jane  had  had  a  good  deal  of  education.  She  had  been  two  years  at  a 
colored  college.  She  had  had  to  leave  because  of  her  bad  conduct.  She 
taught  Melanctha  many  things.  She  taught  her  how  to  go  the  ways  that 
lead  to  wisdom. 

Jane  Harden  was  at  this  time  twenty-three  years  old  and  she  had  had 
much  experience.  She  was  very  much  attracted  by  Melanctha,  and  Me- 
lanctha was  very  proud  that  this  Jane  would  let  her  know  her. 

Jane  Harden  was  not  afraid  to  understand.  Melanctha  who  had  strong 
the  sense  for  real  experience,  knew  that  here  was  a  woman  who  had 
learned  to  understand. 

Jane  Harden  had  many  bad  habits.  She  drank  a  great  deal,  and  she 
wandered  widely.  She  was  safe  though  now,  when  she  wanted  to  be  safe, 
in  this  wandering. 

Melanctha  Herbert  soon  always  wandered  with  her.  Melanctha  tried 
the  drinking  and  some  of  the  other  habits,  but  she  did  not  find  that  she 
cared  very  much  to  do  them.  But  every  day  she  grew  stronger  in  her 
desire  to  really  understand. 

It  was  now  no  longer,  even  in  the  daylight,  the  rougher  men  that  these 
two  learned  to  know  in  their  wanderings,  and  for  Melanctha  the  better 
classes  were  now  a  little  higher.  It  was  no  longer  express  agents  and 
clerks  that  she  learned  to  know,  but  men  in  business,  commercial  travel- 
ers, and  even  men  above  these,  and  Jane  and  she  would  talk  and  walk 
and  laugh  and  escape  from  them  all  very  often.  It  was  still  the  same, 
the  knowing  of  them  and  the  always  just  escaping,  only  now  for  Me- 
lanctha somehow  it  was  different,  for  though  it  was  always  the  same 
thing  that  happened  it  had  a  different  flavor,  for  now  Melanctha  was 
with  a  woman  who  had  wisdom,  and  dimly  she  began  to  see  what  it 
was  that  she  should  understand. 

It  was  not  from  the  men  that  Melanctha  learned  her  wisdom.  It  was 
always  Jane  Harden  herself  who  was  making  Melanctha  begin  to  un- 
derstand. 

Jane  was  a  roughened  woman.  She  had  power  and  she  liked  to  use 
it,  she  had  much  white  blood  and  that  made  her  see  clear,  she  liked 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  313 

drinking  and  that  made  her  reckless.  Her  white  blood  was  strong  in 
her  and  she  had  grit  and  endurance  and  a  vital  courage.  She  was  always 
game,  however  much  she  was  in  trouble.  She  liked  Melanctha  Herbert 
for  the  things  that  she  had  like  her,  and  then  Melanctha  was  young,  and 
she  had  sweetness,  and  a  way  of  listening  with  intelligence  and  sym- 
pathetic interest,  to  the  stories  that  Jane  Harden  often  told  out  of  her 
experience. 

Jane  grew  always  fonder  of  Melanctha.  Soon  they  began  to  wander, 
more  to  be  together  than  to  see  men  and  learn  their  various  ways  of 
working.  Then  they  began  not  to  wander,  and  Melanctha  would  spend 
long  hours  with  Jane  in  her  room,  sitting  at  her  feet  and  listening  to  her 
stories,  and  feeling  her  strength  and  the  power  of  her  affection,  and 
slowly  she  began  to  see  clear  before  her  one  certain  way  that  would  be 
sure  to  lead  to  wisdom. 

Before  the  end  came,  the  end  of  the  two  years  in  which  Melanctha 
spent  all  her  time  when  she  was  not  at  school  or  in  her  home,  with  Jane 
Harden,  before  these  two  years  were  finished,  Melanctha  had  come  to 
see  very  clear,  and  she  had  come  to  be  very  certain,  what  it  is  that  gives 
the  world  its  wisdom. 

Jane  Harden  always  had  a  little  money  and  she  had  a  room  in  the 
lower  part  of  the  town.  Jane  had  once  taught  in  a  colored  school.  She 
had  had  to  leave  that  too  on  account  of  her  bad  conduct.  It  was  her  drink- 
ing that  always  made  all  the  trouble  for  her,  for  that  can  never  be  really 
covered  over. 

Jane's  drinking  was  always  growing  worse  upon  her.  Melanctha  had 
tried  to  do  the  drinking  but  it  had  no  real  attraction  for  her.  , 

In  the  ,  first  year,  between  Jane  Harden  and  Melanctha  Herbert,  Jane 
had  been  much  the  stronger.  Jane  loved  Melanctha  and  she  found  her 
always  intelligent  and  brave  and  sweet  and  docile,  and  Jane  meant  to, 
and  before  the  year  was  over  she  had  taught  Melanctha  what  it  is  that 
gives  many  people  in  the  world  their  wisdom. 

Jane  had  many  ways  in  which  to  do  this  teaching.  She  told  Melanctha 
many  things.  She  loved  Melanctha  hard  and  made  Melanctha  feel  it 
very  deeply.  She  would  be  with  other  people  and  with  men  and  with 
Melanctha,  and  she  would  make  Melanctha  understand  what  everybody 
wanted,  and  what  one  did  with  power  when  one  had  it. 

Melanctha  sat  at  Jane's  feet  for  many  hours  in  these  days  and  felt 
Jane's  wisdom.  She  learned  to  love  Jane  and  to  have  this  feeling  very 


314  MELANCTHA 

deeply.  She  learned  a  little  in  these  days  to  know  joy,  and  she  was  taught 
too  how  very  keenly  she  could  suffer.  It  was  very  different  this  suffering 
from  that  Melanctha  sometimes  had  from  her  mother  and  from  her  very 
unendurable  black  father.  Then  she  was  fighting  and  she  could  be  strong 
and  valiant  in  her  suffering,  but  here  with  Jane  Harden  she  was  long- 
ing and  she  bent  and  pleaded  with  her  suffering. 

It  was  a  very  tumultuous,  very  mingled  year,  this  time  for  Melanc- 
tha, but  she  certainly  did  begin  to  really  understand. 

In  every  way  she  got  it  from  Jane  Harden.  There  was  nothing  good 
or  bad  in  doing,  feeling,  thinking  or  in  talking,  that  Jane  spared  her. 
Sometimes  the  lesson  came  almost  too  strong  for  Melanctha,  but  some- 
how she  always  managed  to  endure  it  and  so  slowly,  but  always  with 
increasing  strength  and  feeling,  Melanctha  began  to  really  understand. 

Then  slowly,  between  them,  it  began  to  be  all  different.  Slowly  now 
between  them,  it  was  Melanctha  Herbert,  who  was  stronger.  Slowly  now 
they  began  to  drift  apart  from  one  another. 

Melanctha  Herbert  never  really  lost  her  sense  that  it  was  Jane  Harden 
who  had  taught  her,  but  Jane  did  many  things  that  Melanctha  now 
no  longer  needed.  And  then,  too,  Melanctha  never  could  remember  right 
when  it  came  to  what  she  had  done  and  what  had  happened.  Melanctha 
now  sometimes  quarreled  with  Jane,  and  they  no  longer  went  about  to- 
gether, and  sometimes  Melanctha  really  forgot  how  much  she  owed 
to  Jane  Harden's  teaching. 

Melanctha  began  now  to  feel  that  she  had  always  had  world  wisdom. 
She  really  knew  of  course,  that  it  was  Jane  who  had  taught  her,  but  all 
that  began,  to  be  covered  over  by  the  trouble  between  them,  that  was 
now  always  getting  stronger. 

Jane  Harden  was  a  roughened  woman.  Once  she  had  been  very  strong, 
but  now  she  was  weakened  in  all  her  kinds  of  strength  by  her  drinking. 
Melanctha  had  tried  the  drinking  but  it  had  had  no  real  attraction  for 
her. 

Jane's  strong  and  roughened  nature  and  her  drinking  made  it  always 
harder  for  her  to  forgive  Melanctha,  that  now  Melanctha  did  not  really 
need  her  any  longer.  Now  it  was  Melanctha  who  was  stronger  and  it 
was  Jane  who  was  dependent  on  her. 

Melanctha  was  now  come  to  be  about  eighteen  years  old.  She  was  a 
graceful,  pale  yellow,  good  looking,  intelligent,  attractive  negress,  a  little 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  315 

mysterious  sometimes  in  her  ways,  and  always  good  and  pleasant,  and 
always  ready  to  do  things  for  people. 

Melanctha  from  now  on  saw  very  little  of  Jane  Harden.  Jane  did  not 
like  that  very  well  and  sometimes  she  abused  Melanctha,  but  her  drink- 
ing soon  covered  everything  all  over. 

It  was  not  in  Melanctha's  nature  to  really  lose  her  sense  for  Jane 
Harden.  Melanctha  all  her  life  was  ready  to  help  Jane  out  in  any  of  her 
trouble,  and  later,  when  Jane  really  went  to  pieces,  Melanctha  always 
did  all  that  she  could  to  help  her. 

But  Melanctha  Herbert  was  ready  now  herself  to  do  teaching.  Melanc- 
tha could  do  anything  now  that  she  wanted.  Melanctha  knew  now  what 
everybody  wanted. 

Melanctha  had  learned  how  she  might  stay  a  little  longer;  she  had 
learned  that  she  must  decide  when  she  wanted  really  to  stay  longer,  and 
she  had  learned  how  when  she  wanted  to,  she  could  escape. 

And  so  Melanctha  began  once  more  to  wander.  It  was  all  now  for  her 
very  different.  It  was  never  rougher  men  now  that  she  talked  to,  and 
she  did  not  care  much  now  to  know  white  men  of  the,  for  her,  very 
better  classes.  It  was  now  something  realler  that  Melanctha  wanted, 
something  that  would  move  her  very  deeply,  something  that  would  fill 
her  fully  with  the  wisdom  that  was  planted  now  within  her,  and  that 
she  wanted  badly,  should  really  wholly  fill  her. 

Melanctha  these  days  wandered  very  widely.  She  was  always  alone  now 
when  she  wandered.  Melanctha  did  not  need  help  now  to  know,  or 
to  stay  longer,  or  when  she  wanted,  to  escape. 

Melanctha  tried  a  great  many  men,  in  these  days  before  she  was  really 
suited.  It  was  almost  a  year  that  she  wandered  and  then  she  met  with 
a  young  mulatto.  He  was  a  doctor  who  had  just  begun  to  practice.  He 
would  most  likely  do  well  in  the  future,  but  it  was  not  this  that  con- 
cerned Melanctha.  She  found  him  good  and  strong  and  gentle  and  very 
intellectual,  and  all  her  life  Melanctha  liked  and  wanted  good  and  con- 
siderate people,  and  then  too  he  did  not  at  first  believe  in  Melanctha. 
He  held  off  and  did  not  know  what  it  was  that  Melanctha  wanted.  Me- 
lanctha came  to  want  him  very  badly.  They  began  to  know  each  other 
better.  Things  began  to  be  very  strong  between  them.  Melanctha  wanted 
him  so  badly  that  now  she  never  wandered.  She  just  gave  herself  to  this 
experience. 


316  MELANCTHA 

Melanctha  Herbert  was  now,  all  alone,  in  Bridgepoint.  She  lived  now 
with  this  colored  woman  and  now  with  that  one,  and  she  sewed,  and 
sometimes  she  taught  a  little  in  a  colored  school  as  substitute  for  some 
teacher.  Melanctha  had  now  no  home  nor  any  regular  employment. 
Life  was  just  commencing  for  Melanctha.  She  had  youth  and  had 
learned  wisdom,  and  she  was  graceful  and  pale  yellow  and  very  pleasant, 
and  always  ready  to  do  things  for  people,  and  she  was  mysterious  in  her 
ways  and  that  only  made  belief  in  her  more  fervent. 

During  the  year  before  she  met  Jefferson  Campbell,  Melanctha  had 
tried  many  kinds  of  men  but  they  had  none  of  them  interested  Melanc- 
tha very  deeply.  She  met  them,  she  was  much  with  them,  she  left  them, 
she  would  think  perhaps  this  next  time  it  wouhj  be  more  exciting,  and 
always  she  found  that  for  her  it  all  had  no  real  meaning.  She  could  now 
do  everything  she  wanted,  she  knew  now  everything  that  everybody 
wanted,  and  yet  it  all  had  no  excitement  for  her.  With  these  men,  she 
knew  she  could  learn  nothing.  She  wanted  some  one  that  could  teach 
her  very  deeply  and  now  at  last  she  was  sure  that  she  had  found  him, 
yes  she  really  had  it,  before  she  had  thought  to  look  if  in  this  man  she 
would  find  it. 

During  this  year  'Mis'  Herbert  as  her  neighbors  called  her,  Melanc- 
tha's  pale  yellow  mother  was  very  sick,  and  in  this  year  she  died. 

Melanctha's  father  during  these  last  years  did  not  come  very  often  to 
the  house  where  his  wife  lived  and  Melanctha.  Melanctha  was  not  sure 
that  her  father  was  now  any  longer  here  in  Bridgepoint.  It  was  Melanctha 
who  was  very  good  now  to  her  mother.  It  was  always  Melanctha's  way 
to  be  good  to  any  one  in  trouble. 

Melanctha  took  good  care  of  her  mother.  She  did  everything  that  any 
woman  could,  she  tended  and  soothed  and  helped  her  pale  yellow 
mother,  and  she  worked  hard  in  every  way  to  take  care  of  her,  and  make 
her  dying  easy.  But  Melanctha  did  not  in  these  days  like  her  mother  any 
better,  and  her  mother  never  cared  much  for  this  daughter  who  was  al- 
ways a  hard  child  to  manage,  and  who  had  a  tongue  that  always  could 
be  very  nasty. 

Melanctha  did  everything  that  any  woman  could,  and  at  last  her 
mother  died,  and  Melanctha  had  her  buried.  Melanctha's  father  was  not 
heard  from,  and  Melanctha  in  all  her  life  after,  never  saw  or  heard  or 
knew  of  anything  that  her  father  did. 

It  was  the  young  doctor,  Jetferson  Campbell,  who  helped  Melanctha 


EACH  ONE  AS  SHE  MAY  317 

toward  the  end,  to  take  care  of  her  sick  mother.  Jefferson  Campbell  had 
often  before  seen  Melanctha  Herbert,  but  he  had  never  liked  her  very 
well,  and  he  had  never  believed  that  she  was  any  good.,  He  had  heard 
something  about  how  she  wandered.  He  knew  a  little  too  of  Jane 
Harden,  and  he  was  sure  that  this  Melanctha  Herbert,  who  was  her 
friend  and  who  wandered,  would  never  come  to  any  good. 

Dr.  Jefferson  Campbell  was  a  serious,  earnest,  good  young  joyous  doc- 
tor. He  liked  to  take  care  of  everybody  and  he  loved  his  own  colored 
people.  He  always  found  life  very  easy  did  Jeff  Campbell,  and  every- 
body liked  to  have  him  with  them.  He  was  so  good  and  sympathetic,  and 
he  was  so  earnest  and  so  joyous.  He  sang  when  he  was  happy,  and  he 
laughed,  and  his  was  the  free  abandoned  laughter  that  gives  the  warm 
broad  glow  to  negro  sunshine. 

Jeff  Campbell  had  never  yet  in  his  life  had  real  trouble.  Jefferson's 
father  was  a  good,  kind,  serious,  religious  man.  He  was  a  very  steady, 
very  intelligent,  and  very  dignified,  light  brown,  grey  haired  negro.  He 
was  a  butler  and  he  had  worked  for  the  Campbell  family  many  years, 
and  his  father  and  his  mother  before  him  had  been  in  the  service  of  this 
family  as  free  people. 

Jefferson  Campbell's  father  and  his  mother  had  of  course  been  regu- 
larly married.  Jefferson's  mother  was  a  sweet,  little,  pale  brown,  gentle 
woman  who  reverenced  and  obeyed  her  good  husband,  and  who  wor- 
shipped and  admired  and  loved  hard  her  good,  earnest,  cheery,  hard 
working  doctor  boy  who  was  her  only  child. 

Jeff  Campbell  had  been  raised  religious  by  his  people  but  religion  had 
never  interested  Jeff  very  much.  Jefferson  was  very  good.  He  loved  his 
people  and  he  never  hurt  them,  and  he  always  did  everything  they 
wanted  and  that  he  could  to  please  them,  but  he  really  loved  best  science 
and  experimenting  and  to  learn  things,  and  he  early  wanted  to  be  a 
doctor,  and  he  was  always  very  interested  in  the  life  of  the  colored  people. 

The  Campbell  family  had  been  very  good  to  him  and  had  helped  him 
on  with  his  ambition.  Jefferson  studied  hard,  he  went  to  a  colored  col- 
lege, and  then  he  learnt  to  be  a  doctor. 

It  was  now  two  or  three  years,  that  he  had  started  in  to  practice. 
Everybody  liked  Jeff  Campbell,  he  was  so  strong  and  kindly  and  cheer- 
ful and  understanding,  and  he  laughed  so  with  pure  joy,  and  he  always 
liked  to  help  all  his  own  colored  people. 

Dr.  Jeff  knew  all  about  Jane  Harden.  He  had  taken  care  of  her  in 


318  MELANCTHA 

some  of